Prisoners Charged with Drug Offences (FOI)

​​​​​​​Request

Please confirm the number of people currently held at Le Moye Prison on drugs offences and the annual cost of keeping them? 

Please break this down by offences relating to Class of Drugs (A, B, or C) and conviction, such as possession or possession with intent to supply, or perhaps another way to gauge the severity of the offence for which they are held.

Response

On the 8 October 2024 there was 49 prisoners being held at HMP La Moye on an Indexed Offence for Drug offences.  36 are Convicted on these charges and 13 are on remand.  Please note there may be other prisoners that are being held also on drug offences but not deemed as their main offence. To ascertain this would exceed the 12.5 hours allowed for Freedom of Information responses in accordance with Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014, as this would require manual checking of each record. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

The annual cost can be found in previous a previous Freedom of Information response, therefore Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied. Please see the following link:

Cost of housing prisoners in La Moye prison (FOI)​

It has been estimated that to break the data down into Class of Drugs would exceed the 12.5 hours allowed for Freedom of Information responses in accordance with Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied. However please see the below table that may give an indication of the range of sentences prisoners are serving under drug offences.

​Articles 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. 

Article 23 - Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.​

Internal Review Request

I would like to appeal the decision not to break these down to class of drugs under Article 16, and also appeal the decision not to manually check 49 files, which I do not believe would take more than 12.5 hours. 

Internal Review Response

This review has been completed by two senior staff members of the Government of Jersey, independent of the original decision-making process. The original response has been reviewed and assessed, and the findings are detailed below.

The panel agreed with the initial decision that to go through all prisoners’ committals and indictments for those held in custody would exceed the 12.5 hours allowed for Freedom of Information responses in accordance with Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied. The need to go through all of the committals, rather than 49 files, is to ascertain if a prisoner is serving a sentence for a drug conviction when this may not be their index offence.

The panel agreed that to check the 49 files would not exceed the 12.5 hours threshold, however these have already been identified as individuals being held at La Moye on drug offences. Therefore, to fully answer the original request, would require the checking of all prisoners’ records.

The information regarding class of drugs could be provided for the 49 people held at HMP La Moye on an Indexed Offence for drug offences. Therefore, please see the below information.  

​

Some of those held for Class A and B offences are also held for Class C offences, however as numbers are fewer than five, disclosure control is applied to avoid identification of individuals. Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied. 

The unknown cases are due to the information not being included in the committal for the individual; only the charge is stated. 

Articles 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. 

Article 25 - Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.