Prisons: Crimes of Violence
(asked on 5th September 2022) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the annual number of reported assaults on (1) prisoners, and (2) prison staff, in each of the last 10 years.
The Department publishes statistics on deaths, self-harm and assaults in prison custody in England and Wales in the quarterly Safety in Custody statistics available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/safety-in-custody-statistics. The table below shows the requested data, broken down by financial year, from 2012-13 to 2021-22:
Financial Year | Total Number of Assaults: Prisoner on Prisoner (1,2,3,4,6) | Total Number of Assaults: Prisoner on Prison Staff (1,2,3,5,6) |
2012-13 | 11,173 | 2,964 |
2013-14 | 11,651 | 3,372 |
2014-15 | 12,953 | 3,887 |
2015-16 | 16,731 | 5,409 |
2016-17 | 19,360 | 7,159 |
2017-18 | 22,374 | 9,003 |
2018-19 | 22,821 | 9,630 |
2019-20 | 20,632 | 9,020 |
2020-21 | 10,977 | 7,011 |
2021-22 | 12,773 | 7,599 |
(1) Figures include incidents at HMPPS operated Immigration Removal Centres and during contracted out escorts |
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(2) Figures do not include incidents at Medway STC. For more information on Secure Training Centres, please see Youth justice annual statistics at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/youth-justice-annual-statistics | |
(3) Figures from April 2018 onwards exclude incidents occurring within the youth estate. The youth estate includes incidents occurring within Cookham Wood, Werrington and Wetherby, as well as the youth wing at Feltham and Parc. Prior to April 2018 these figures were collected via manual returns, so it is not possible to split out all youth estate incidents up to March 2018. Figures for incidents occurring within the youth estate are published within the ‘Safety in the children and young people secure estate’ statistics bulletin via the following link - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/safety-in-the-youth-secure-estate-bulletin | |
(4) Prisoner-on-prisoner assaults are a subset of all assault incidents |
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(5) Assaults on staff are a subset of all assault incidents |
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(6) The sum of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and assaults on staff may not equal the total number of assaults because staff may be assaulted in a prisoner-on-prisoner assault incident and other assault incidents may involve other people, e.g. visitors |
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The Prisons Strategy White Paper set out how we will improve safety and security in our prisons. Prison staff carry out a vital role in protecting the public and we will do all we can to protect them and prisoners from violence.