Government of Jersey

Prisoner costs relating to cannabis crimes (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey and published on 23 July 2019.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

Request

Please can you confirm the cost of keeping inmates at HMP La Moye for cannabis law related crime for the past five years and the projected cost for next 24 months based on the current number of inmates for cannabis law related crime.

Response

The States of Jersey Prison Service is unable to provide data for the past five years in the timescale allowed by the Freedom of Information Regulations. This is due to the amount of research required as the Prison Service do not keep statistics on this matter. The research undertaken has identified the following data:

2019 – To date

13 prisoners were identified to have been received into Prison with Cannabis related charges. However from those 13, only four have been placed into custody solely with Cannabis charges. The other 9 have other charges that may be of a more serious matter and hence States of Jersey Prison Service is unable to confirm the time spent in Prison Custody had anything to do with the Cannabis related charges.

The four prisoners identified are facing Importation Charges. The cases are still ongoing.

The annual cost of a prisoner place at HMP La Moye for 2019 is £55,671.

2018

15 prisoners were identified to have been received into Prison with Cannabis related charges. Of which four were solely for these charges as follows:

Possession with intent to Supply	Importation	Possession	Concerned in Supply	Sentence *
X		X	X	8 Months
		X		Bound Over / CSO
	X			3 Months
			X	7 years 6 months

The annual cost of a prisoner place at HMP La Moye for 2018 was £53,275.

2017

26 prisoners were identified to have been received into Prison Custody with Cannabis related charges. Of which 12 were solely for these charges as follows:

Possession with intent to Supply	Importation	Possession	Concerned in Supply	Production	Sentence *
	X				6 Years 3 Months
	X				5 Years
	X				5 Years
	X				4 Years 6 months
	X				5 Years
	X				4 Years 4 months
	X				2 Years
		X	X	X	2 Years 3 months
X		X			Released from court
			X		7 Years 6 months
			X		4 Years 6 months
			X		5 Years 9 months

The annual cost of a prisoner place at HMP La Moye for 2017 was £52,609.

*Under Jersey sentencing policy, a prisoner can gain back one third of their sentences as remission.

Please note the above lists may not be conclusive. Prisoners may have been placed into custody for Non-payment of Fines and in Breach of their Community Service Order (CSO) for charges which may include Cannabis related charges, however the SOJ Prison Service do not receive any further details and so are unable to include those prisoners into this data.

Please also note not all prisoners will serve their sentence in Jersey and may apply for transfer to the UK. Other prisoners may be released on a Conditional Early Release Licence.

Due to this, and the ongoing nature of current cases, we are unable to accurately forecast projected costs over the next 24 months.

Article applied

Article 16 A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.