Latest infographic: Prison population

It appears that the prison population has stopped falling, with numbers staying roughly the same for four weeks. Our research analyst Matt Ford has explored what we know about the factors that will have contributed to the significant reduction in the prison population in the months of the lockdown. 

It has more to do with drops in recorded law-breaking and the suspension of court activity than measures implmented by the government, with the latest figures showing that so far only 227 people have been released early from prisons in England and Wales under temporary COVID-19 related schemes.