Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many people in the UK have died in prison while serving custodial sentences in each of the past ten years.

The number of deaths of prisoners[1][2][3][4] serving custodial sentences[5][6] in England and Wales, 2014 to 2023

Data Sources and Quality

These figures are derived from the HMPPS Deaths in Prison Custody database.

1. Figures include incidents during contracted out escorts. Figures include England and Wales only and not the whole UK as we only hold detailed data for England and Wales.

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. Deaths in prison custody figures include all deaths of prisoners arising from incidents during prison custody. They include deaths of prisoners while released on temporary license (ROTL) for medical reasons but exclude other types of ROTL where the state has less direct responsibility.

4. In addition to deaths in prison custody, the figures include deaths in custody that occur in hospitals, hospices or nursing homes, and a small proportion will occur while in an ambulance on the way to hospital, while on escort.

5. Figures includes deaths of sentenced prisoners only, they do not include deaths of prisoners on remand, immigration detainees or non-criminal prisoners.

6. A breakdown of deaths by sentence type is published within the annual deaths tables, the latest annual deaths detailed data includes deaths up to 2023. Figures for 2024 deaths, including a breakdown by sentence type, will be published in January 2025.