Self-harm incidents in prisons have soared to a record high amid the overcrowding crisis, figures have revealed, as deaths, assaults and attacks on prison staff also surge.
A prisoner self-harmed once every seven minutes in England and Wales in the year to June 2024, and a prisoner was assaulted once every 18 minutes.
Prisons minister James Timpson has said the stark figures, recorded as many prisons started to run out of cells this summer, shows the scale of the crisis inherited from the Tory government – as he warned prisons are failing in their basic function to cut crime.
He also said attacks on staff have reached “endemic” levels with attacks up 30 per cent year on year.
More than 76,000 incidents of self-harm were reported in the year to June 2024, up 19 per cent, to the highest level since current records began in 2004, according to Ministry of Justice figures published on Thursday.
In 3,449 of the incidents the prisoner needed to be taken to hospital for treatment.
In total there were 13,605 individuals who self-harmed, a 16 per cent increase from 11,764 in the previous 12 months. Frequently one prisoner will commit multiple acts of self-harm.
According to the data, the rate of self-harm is more than eight times higher in prisons holding women than in prisons holding men.
There has also been a 24 per cent surge in assaults year on year, with 29,254 attacks recorded, including 3,305 serious assaults.
These are when a prisoner is sexually assaulted, stabbed, requires in-patient hospital treatment, or suffers one of a string of serious injuries including concussion, internal injuries, a fracture, scald or burn, extensive or multiple bruising, black eye, broken nose, lost or broken tooth, cuts requiring suturing, bites, temporary or permanent blindness.
Assaults in women’s prisons have reached their highest level since current recording practices began in 2000, figures show.
Worryingly, some 10,281 assaults were carried out on prison staff in the 12 months to June 2024, a 30 per cent increase from the previous 12 months.
The data also shows that 317 people in prison died in the 12 months to the end of September 2024, up four per cent on the previous year. They included 88 people who died in circumstances recorded as “self-inflicted”.
Mick Pimblett, assistant general secretary of prison officers union the POA, said staff are “fed up of being used as punching bags due to chronic staffing levels, staff shortfalls, overcrowded prisons, and impoverished regimes.”
“The level of violence, self-harm and self-inflicted deaths, alongside the continued use of drugs within the prison estate is unacceptable,” he added.
Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “These shocking statistics are a barometer of a system under immense pressure. Rising levels of self-harm and assaults reveal the scale of distress and tragedy in prisons that have been asked to do too much, with too little, for too long.”
Pia Sinha, chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust, said the promise of increased resources in this week’s budget must be met with sustained effort to reduce demand on the prison system.
“These shocking figures underline the very human consequences of the severe pressures the prison system is under,” she added.
“The record levels of self-harm also highlight the pressing and urgent need to address the severe and unmet levels of mental health need in prison.”
The Labour government freed around 1,700 prisoners in September after serving just 40 per cent of their sentence under emergency measure to ease overcrowding, with another 1,100 released this month.
An inmate gave a “big up” to Sir Keir Starmer was he was pictured leaving HMP Swaleside seven weeks early in a white Bentley last week under the controversial early release scheme.
A sentencing review being led former justice secretary David Gauke has also been announced help tackle the overcrowding crisis, which is expected to look at “tough alternatives to custody” in a bid to bring prisons back from the brink of collapse.
Minister for prisons, probation and reducing reoffending, Lord Timpson, said: “These statistics yet again illustrate the scale of the prison crisis this Government inherited and how prisons are failing their basic function to cut crime.
“Attacks on our hardworking staff have reached endemic levels and the rate of self-harm has peaked at a depressing high – both indications of the system’s failure to rehabilitate.
“This new Government has already taken urgent action to save the prison system from the point of collapse and we will now make the reforms necessary so that prisons are safer and make better citizens, not better criminals.”
