Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many ‘use of force incidents’ have occurred on the prison estate in each month of the last 12-month period for which data are available.

The below table is the total number of use of force incidents from April 2019 to March 2020. This data is collated from management information and due to how the data is validated it may not tally with official statistics.

We have been introducing PAVA to the adult male estate to help protect staff and prisoners from incidents where there is serious violence, or an imminent or perceived risk of serious violence.

Since the roll out of PAVA began in April 2019, it has been used on 81 prisoners. It has been drawn (but not used) on 36 individuals, totalling 117 prisoners.

The table below shows the number of times PAVA has been drawn or used, broken down by ethnicity. Revised guidance on PAVA guidance was issued in April and the first prison outside the pilot began using PAVA in August. Therefore, data between April and July will only reflect usage at the pilot sites (HMPs Risley, Hull, Preston and Wealstun)

The ‘not recorded’ category includes those prisoners who do not disclose their ethnicity on reception into custody.

Prisoners from BAME backgrounds made up 27% of all prisoners. In March 2019, prisoners who declared themselves in the White ethnic group made up almost three quarters (59,911 or 73%) of the prison population in England and Wales. Prisoners who declared their ethnicity as Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) represented 22,227 (or 27%) of all prisoners.

PAVA is just one of many tools we give to prison officers to help them do their job more safely, alongside body worn video cameras training, and rigid bar handcuffs. Above all, we know that one of the most effective tools in managing people safely is the interpersonal skills of our staff.

HMPPS is committed and duty bound to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not and to foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

In response to the Lammy Review, we are updating the training we give to officers to raise awareness among all staff of how biases can affect decision making, and strategies to combat these.

PAVA, as with any use of force, must always only be used if necessary and proportionate to the seriousness of the circumstances. The application of physical techniques, or the use of PAVA, is to be used only when other methods not involving force have been repeatedly tried and failed, or are judged unlikely to succeed, and action needs to be taken to prevent serious injury or harm to prisoners or staff.

Quality assurance and scrutiny of incidents is vital to ensuring that force is used legally and appropriately. Governors will be expected to ensure that scrutiny takes place after any drawing and/or use of PAVA. We have developed a toolkit of resources to assist prisons in maintaining effective scrutiny.