Ministry of Justice · Prison population: weekly estate figures
Prison useable operational capacity
88,937places
Prison useable operational capacity was 88,937 places in the week beginning 24 August 2026, up 0.0% (16) from 88,921 in the week beginning 17 August 2026.
▲ 0.0% · +16 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 “Useable Operational Capacity”
- column “Total”
- cell value 88937
Week beginning 17 August 2026 to Week beginning 24 August 2026
What this measures
The total number of prisoners that prisons in England and Wales could hold on the Monday named in the weekly bulletin, allowing for control, security and the proper operation of the planned regime.
What this doesn’t measure
Certified normal accommodation (the uncrowded capacity), cells out of use for repair, or places in immigration removal centres.
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.
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
- Useable Operational Capacity
- Column
- Total
- Cell value
- 88937
- Geography
- England and Wales
- Unit
- places
- API
- /api/metrics/prison_operational_capacity · /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.
- Release
- Week of 24 August 2026 · publication page
- Last updated
- 24 August 2026
- Next release expected
- Not yet announced (estimated from the usual cadence)