Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many deaths by suicide there have been of people in prison in England and Wales for each year in the last decade.

Self-inflicted deaths are any deaths of a person who has apparently taken his or her own life irrespective of intent. This not only includes suicides, but also accidental deaths as a result of the person's own actions.

Data Sources and Quality:

These figures are derived from the HMPPS Incident Reporting System and the HMPPS Deaths in Prison Custody database. Care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, but the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. Although the figures are shown to the last individual the figures may not be accurate to that level.

1 - 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.

2 - Due to the number of deaths that remain unclassified (awaiting further information) in recent years, and the latest year particularly, caution should be used when comparing with earlier periods.

3 - A proportion of the most recent two years' figures for 'other' deaths are expected to be re-classified as natural causes or self-inflicted deaths.