Fact check: More than half of female prisoners sentenced for violent crimes

Norfolk police and crime commissioner (PCC) Colin Sutton told Times Radio on July 27: “The fact is that something like 80% of women who are in the prison system are there not for violent reasons.”The Reform UK PCC was discussing his proposal for an early release scheme targeting female prisoners.EvaluationThe most recent data on prison populations shows the majority (58.2%) of women and girls in jail across England and Wales were sentenced for offences considered “violent crimes”.Similar figures to Mr Sutton’s claim have previously been cited by a prison reform charity when discussing the number of women sentenced to prison for non-violent crimes in a year, rather than the female prison population as a whole. However, these figures are not recent.The factsCampaign group Prison Reform Trust has previously cited similar figures to Mr Sutton when discussing the level of women sent to prison for non-violent offences.It said 72% of women who “entered prison under sentence in 2020 have committed a non-violent offence”, and in an earlier report it said 84% of women entering prison in the year to June 2016 had committed a non-violent offence.This is different to Mr Sutton’s claim because it only measures those who entered prison in a specific year, and is not a snapshot of all women in prison at those times.Since violent crimes carry longer sentences, the makeup of recent prison entrants is a bad proxy for the prison population as a whole. Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures for England and Wales in 2025 show the average custodial sentence across violent crimes committed by women or girls was 18.5 months, compared with eight months for all other crimes.The Prison Reform Trust does not directly say how it arrives at its figures for non-violent entrants, but it does link to MoJ data.Attempting to replicate the charity’s analysis on the number of custodial sentences handed to women in 2020 and in the year to June 2016 suggests its definition of a “violent offence” included several crime categories. They were violence against the person offences, robbery, possession of weapons, sexual offences and criminal damage and arson.How many female prisoners committed violent crimes?The most recent MoJ figures on the prison population in England and Wales show there were 3,439 female prisoners as of March 31 2026 with available data.Read MoreThe data is broken down by prison, sex, and offence. For privacy reasons, figures are not included where a category has two or fewer people.Of the female prisoners, 2,002 (58.2%) were serving sentences for offences considered violent crimes, using the Prison Reform Trust’s definition.It means 41.8% were serving time for non-violent offences, including drug crimes, fraud, theft, public order offences, or where an offence was not recorded.How many women are given custodial sentences for violent crimes?Different data from the MoJ focuses on people who entered the prison system last year, better highlighting the number of sentences handed to women for violent crimes. These figures were used by the Prison Reform Trust.The most recent data shows 3,711 women received an immediate custodial sentence in 2025, including 1,191 for violent crimes (32.1%).This means 67.9% of women who were sentenced to prison last year were non-violent offenders.Analysis of the figures shows the rate of women sent to prison for non-violent offences has been declining. Prior to 2020, the proportion of women sentenced to prison for non-violent crimes was consistently around 80%, going back to 2015 when the current data series starts.Mr Sutton has been contacted for comment.The links