Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers reported abuse by offenders in (a) 2022, (b) 2023, and (c) 2024.

Abuse of prison officers by prisoners is taken very seriously, and will never be tolerated. It is comprehensively recorded through various mechanisms, including internal reports, disciplinary records, and external investigations. The goal of these systems is to ensure the safety and security of staff, while also managing the behaviour of prisoners within the system. As the information is collected in a variety of formats, collating it would be a labour-intensive process, which could not be undertaken without incurring disproportionate cost.

Attacks on prison officers are taken very seriously, and they are treated equally with assaults on the police and other emergency service workers under the Assaults on Emergency Workers Act (Offences) 2018. Since June 2022, the maximum penalty for those who assault emergency workers, which covers prison officers, has now doubled.