Prisons: Crimes of Violence

(asked on 19th February 2021) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, of the total convictions recorded in the last five years involving a crime committed by a prisoner against a prison officer or another employee of Her Majesty's Prison Service, how many and what proportion of those convictions resulted in an additional (non-concurrent) sentence for the perpetrator.


Answered by
Lucy Frazer Portrait
Lucy Frazer
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This question was answered on 1st March 2021

Violence against our hardworking staff will not be tolerated and any prisoner who commits an act of violence will be held to account.

Currently, data is not held centrally on the number of convictions for crimes committed by a prisoner against prison employees. This is being reviewed with the aim to collate data from all establishments for all crimes committed in prison, whilst also creating guidance on how to appropriately refer crimes committed in prison to the police.

The ‘Crime in Prison Referral Agreement’ was created in May 2019 and sets out the agreement between Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The aim is to ensure that acts of criminality that occur in prison are appropriately addressed within the Criminal Justice System.

In line with the Crime in Prison Referral Agreement, assaults against members of staff will be referred to the police for investigation and consideration for prosecution. Less serious assaults, where there is little or no injury, are more appropriately dealt with by the prison disciplinary system.

The courts retain the discretion to decide whether sentences should be served concurrently or consecutively, based on the facts of the case. The Sentencing Council’s Totality guideline provides courts with guidance on whether sentences should be served concurrently or consecutively. Where the individual is serving a determinate sentence and commits another offence after the original sentence was imposed, the new sentence will generally be consecutive to the original sentence.

Our Assaults on Emergency Workers Act increased the maximum penalty for to 12 months and we recently announced we will double the penalty further to two years.

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