Asked by: Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners took their own lives by using an upended unsecured bedframe as a ligature point in each of the last five years in (a) HMP Northumberland, (b) private prisons, (c) public sector prisons; if she will take steps to ensure that all bedframes in prisons are securely fixed; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) records the methods used in self-inflicted deaths, including ligature points. However, the data do not show the precise way in which the ligature point was created.
Since 2005 all new and refurbished cells have been built to the safer cell standard, which minimises the availability of ligature points. This includes beds that are fixed in place and do not offer ligature points. In response to the recommendations of the review into self-inflicted deaths of young adult offenders conducted by Lord Harris, the Government committed to continuous improvement in this design, and to maintaining designated safer cells to the appropriate standard. We are clear, however, that designated safer cells must be seen as part of a wider care plan and can only complement, and not replace, a regime providing individualised and multi-disciplinary care for at-risk prisoners.
Asked by: Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were employed in (a) Durham, (b) Frankland and (c) Low Newton prisons each year since 2010; and in what category of occupation those people were employed in each such year.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Safe prisons are fundamental to the proper functioning of our justice system. Our dedicated prison officers, who support tens of thousands of prisoners every day, are vital to the safe running of our prisons. We have recruited 2,541 in the 12 months to 30 September 2016 and are taking significant action to make sure we have appropriate staffing levels. As I announced last week, we will be investing in an additional 2,500 prison officers across the prison estate.
Information on staff in post within the establishments requested for 31 March from 2010 to 2013 is contained in the attached table. Operational includes, operational support staff, prison officers and operational managers. Non-operational covers all other directly employed grades within the establishment such as administration staff, managers, psychologists, chaplains and facilities staff.
Information from 2014 onwards is published in the NOMS Workforce Statistics Bulletin available on the gov.uk website.
Date |
| Durham | Frankland | Low Newton | |
31-Mar-10 |
|
|
| ||
| Operational | 408 | 759 | 202 | |
| Non-Operational | 134 | 202 | 76 | |
| Total | 542 | 961 | 278 | |
31-Mar-11 |
|
|
| ||
| Operational | 393 | 739 | 200 | |
| Non-Operational | 128 | 198 | 77 | |
| Total | 521 | 937 | 277 | |
31-Mar-12 |
|
|
| ||
| Operational | 339 | 707 | 191 | |
| Non-Operational | 118 | 189 | 78 | |
| Total | 457 | 896 | 269 | |
31-Mar-13 |
|
|
| ||
| Operational | 304 | 681 | 185 | |
| Non-Operational | 95 | 178 | 71 | |
| Total | 399 | 860 | 256 | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Asked by: Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to increase prison staffing numbers.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
I completely agree with the Honourable Lady that we do need appropriate staffing levels in our prisons. Prison officers are vital, both to maintaining safety but also in terms of turning offenders around. That’s why we’ve announced that in 10 of our most challenging prisons we are increasing staffing levels by 20% by March 2017. I will be saying more on the subject in the White Paper.
Asked by: Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 13 April 2016 to Question 33183, whether his Department advises prisons (a) to ask prisoners upon induction if they are already organ donors or if they wish to become one and (b) to keep records of which prisoners are registered organ donors; and if he will amend prison service orders to ensure that the organ donors register is taken into account if a prisoner dies in a prison or in a hospital.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
The Organ Donor Register is a confidential record maintained by NHS Blood and Transplant and patient details are not shared with other organisations; asking prisoners if they are registered could serve to compromise their confidentiality. Joining the Organ Donor Register is a voluntary matter and there are no plans to focus on specific groups such as prisoners. The decision to be a donor is one which prisoners should discuss with their next of kin.
The Government remains fully committed to the strategy agreed in 2013 “Taking Organ Transplantation to 2020” (www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/to2020/) which aims to enable the UK to match world-class performance in organ donation and transplantation.
Asked by: Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether prisons record whether inmates are registered as organ donors; and what protocols are in place for donation of organs after a death in custody.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
The decision to be an organ donor is for prisoners to discuss with their next of kin and to decide whether they wish to add their name to the National Organ Donor Register. Organ donation by prisoners who are transferred to hospital prior to death may be considered in certain clinical circumstances and providing that it does not affect any coroner investigation.
Asked by: Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what contraband and illegal substances of each type entered HM Prison Durham in each month since May 2010.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
The National Offender Management Service takes the importation of drugs and all other items of contraband into prisons extremely seriously. Prisons deploy a comprehensive range of robust searching and security measures to detect such items at the point of entry to the prison. The data below refers to items of contraband and illegal substances discovered having entered HMP Durham.
Prisons are required to centrally report all seizures of drugs, mobile phones and firearms/ammunition. Seizures of drugs and mobile phones reported by HMP Durham for the period May 2010 to September 2014, are provided in the table below. No firearms or ammunition were discovered to have entered HMP Durham during this period. Specific records of other items of contraband are not centrally collected in a way which allows statistically accurate data to be provided.
Table 1: Seizures of drugs and mobile phones at HMP Durham May 2010 to September 2014
Month | Drugs | Mobile Phone |
May-10 | 2 | 0 |
Jun-10 | 0 | 1 |
Jul-10 | 3 | 6 |
Aug-10 | 2 | 3 |
Sep-10 | 0 | 3 |
Oct-10 | 0 | 2 |
Nov-10 | 1 | 6 |
Dec-10 | 0 | 2 |
Jan-11 | 0 | 2 |
Feb-11 | 0 | 2 |
Mar-11 | 0 | 1 |
Apr-11 | 15 | 1 |
May-11 | 8 | 0 |
Jun-11 | 9 | 3 |
Jul-11 | 15 | 3 |
Aug-11 | 17 | 3 |
Sep-11 | 11 | 1 |
Oct-11 | 6 | 14 |
Nov-11 | 16 | 9 |
Dec-11 | 13 | 2 |
Jan-12 | 17 | 6 |
Feb-12 | 18 | 5 |
Mar-12 | 21 | 1 |
Apr-12 | 13 | 1 |
May-12 | 20 | 2 |
Jun-12 | 18 | 0 |
Jul-12 | 8 | 1 |
Aug-12 | 19 | 2 |
Sep-12 | 12 | 0 |
Oct-12 | 13 | 1 |
Nov-12 | 19 | 1 |
Dec-12 | 11 | 3 |
Jan-13 | 6 | 2 |
Feb-13 | 3 | 0 |
Mar-13 | 0 | 1 |
Apr-13 | 4 | 4 |
May-13 | 3 | 1 |
Jun-13 | 2 | 0 |
Jul-13 | 1 | 5 |
Aug-13 | 1 | 6 |
Sep-13 | 3 | 0 |
Oct-13 | 0 | 0 |
Nov-13 | 0 | 0 |
Dec-13 | 0 | 0 |
Jan-14 | 4 | 0 |
Feb-14 | 1 | 0 |
Mar-14 | 3 | 0 |
Apr-14 | 1 | 0 |
May-14 | 8 | 0 |
Jun-14 | 3 | 0 |
Jul-14 | 0 | 4 |
Aug-14 | 3 | 0 |
Sep-14 | 1 | 0 |
Notes:
Many drugs are similar in appearance and in many cases drugs seized are not categorically identified by scientific analysis. Some will have been identified using indicative reagent or Marquis tests. Many will have been identified by appearance only.
One ‘mobile phone’ find may constitute a handset containing one SIM card or media card, a handset only, or a SIM card only.
All figures have been drawn from live administrative data systems which may be amended at any time. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.