Weekly bulletin

The Ministry of Justice publishes the national prison population every Friday. It is the most current figure available anywhere — the establishment-level data elsewhere on this site comes from the monthly release, which runs several months behind.

People held

86,868

Useable operational capacity

88,943

Places left

2,075

Week ending 7 Sept 2026. Source bulletin

Reading these figures

Useable operational capacity is every establishment’s operational capacity added together, less an operating margin of around 2,000 places. The margin exists because a prison place is not interchangeable: people have to be held in the right kind of accommodation for their sex, age, security category and conviction status, and in the right part of the country. So the gap between population and useable operational capacity is the real headroom in the system, and when it narrows the estate has nowhere to put people even if beds exist somewhere.

This is a national figure. For crowding at individual establishments, which is measured differently — population against certified normal accommodation — see the Custody Map.

Recent weeks

Source: Ministry of Justice weekly population bulletin, Open Government Licence v3.0.