Historical trend
Trend summary
The prison population of England and Wales was 85,992 in May 2026, down from a peak of 87,390 in March 2025.
Trend
- The quarterly prison population has ranged between 85,000 and 87,400 since 2015, with limited net change over the decade.
- A temporary fall occurred in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic reduced court activity and early releases were made.
- The population reached a record 87,390 in March 2025 before falling slightly to 85,992 by May 2026.
Context
- Ministry of Justice publishes prison population statistics weekly; quarterly data from the MoJ Population Data Tool covers September 2015 onwards.
- Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate prison systems with separate statistics published by their respective governments.
Commentary contains no editorial judgement — describes direction, magnitude, and official projections only.
OECD comparison
🇳🇴 Norway
43 prisoners
🇩🇪 Germany
69 prisoners
🇫🇷 France
109 prisoners
🇺🇸 United States
531 prisoners
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
85,992 prisoners
About this indicator
- Source
- Ministry of Justice
- Update frequency
- Quarterly
- Last updated
- 19 June 2026
- Licence
- OGL v3
- Direction
- ↓ Falling
Statistics
- Latest
- 86.0k prisoners
- Period high
- 86.0k prisoners
- Period low
- 86.0k prisoners
- Period average
- 86.0k prisoners