Ministry of Justice · Prison population: weekly estate figures

Prison population

Week beginning 24 August 2026 Final

86,843people

Prison population was 86,843 people in the week beginning 24 August 2026, up 0.1% (121) from 86,722 in the week beginning 17 August 2026.

▲ 0.1% · +121 against Week beginning 17 August 2026 (previous period)

Ministry of Justice count
Week beginning 24 August 2026
published 24 August 2026
Population and Capacity Briefing
row “Population”
column “Total”
cell value 86843

Week beginning 17 August 2026 to Week beginning 24 August 2026

Published valueProvisional or revisedLatestShaded bands: governments (see labels)Hover or use arrow keys to read a value

Longer history: 1900 to Week beginning 24 August 2026

Joins Prison population, annual average, 1900 to 2018, Prison population at month end, 2002 to 2015, Prison population at month end, 2015 onwards to the current series. The line is broken where the publisher changed method; the two sides are not directly comparable.

Published valueProvisional or revisedLatestDashed line: change in coverage or methodShaded bands: governments (see labels)Hover or use arrow keys to read a value

Breakdowns

What this measures

The number of people held in prisons in England and Wales on the Monday named in the Ministry of Justice's weekly population bulletin, across the adult male, female and youth custody estates.

What this doesn’t measure

People held in immigration removal centres, police cells or secure hospitals, people on home detention curfew, or prisons in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Important caveat

The weekly prison population bulletin is a snapshot of the number of people held in prisons in England and Wales on one Monday. It is a management figure published by the Ministry of Justice, not an accredited official statistic, and it does not include people held in immigration removal centres or under home detention curfew. Useable operational capacity is the total number of prisoners that establishments can hold taking into account control, security and the proper operation of the planned regime; it changes as cells are opened, closed or repaired.

When the way this was measured changed

A series can move because the thing being measured changed, or because the way of measuring it changed. Each change below is marked on the chart, and says what the figures meant on either side of it.

July 2009 · methodology change

Before: Month-end snapshot of the prison population.
After: Last Friday of the month from July 2009 to February 2010, then a new prison IT system from 2010.

Ministry of Justice: "month end data was not available for the period from July 2009 to February 2010, so data for the last Friday of the month has been used instead (except for December 2009, where the 18 December was used)". From 2010 the data come from a new prison IT system.

June 2010 · methodology change

Before: Prison population as recorded by the previous prison IT system.
After: Prison population as recorded by the prison IT system introduced in 2010.

Ministry of Justice: "Due to the introduction of a new prison IT system the 2010 prison population data is now taken from a different source. The 2009 figures from both the old and new systems have been presented to aid comparison." The earlier-system June 2009 figure is shown.

August 2026 · definition change

Before: Month-end snapshot taken from the annual tables.
After: Monday snapshot taken from the weekly bulletin.

The modern prison population series is the Ministry of Justice's weekly bulletin, a Monday snapshot from 24 August 2026; this series is the month-end snapshot from the annual tables and the two are different days of the month, not a continuation of one another.

Revision history

No period of this series has been revised since it was first ingested here. Revisions are recorded automatically when a later release publishes a different figure for the same period.

Source

Publisher: Ministry of Justice
Publication: Prison population: weekly estate figures
Release: Week of 24 August 2026, published 24 August 2026
Source file: prison-pop-24-aug-2026.ods
File SHA-256: 54ebb2865d8e1853bcd70a16b7f0ad62c17b043881b65c90b6574608a78957c3
Retrieved: 4 September 2026
Sheet: Data
Table: Population and Capacity Briefing
Row: Population
Column: Total
Cell value: 86843
Geography: England and Wales
Unit: people
API: /api/metrics/prison_population · /series · /vintages

Government periods

Change during each government, from the level inherited to the last complete period before it left office. Describes the period; does not attribute cause.

Full comparison with chart

Release: Week of 24 August 2026 · publication page
Last updated: 24 August 2026
Next release expected: Not yet announced (estimated from the usual cadence)