21 hours ago
9
Attacks on prison officers and the number of inmate deaths in England and Wales have soared to record levels according to official figures released on Thursday.
Ministry of Justice statistics show there were 10,568 assaults on staff in jails between 24 April 2024 and 25 March – up 7% on the previous year.
The number of people dying in prison rose by nearly a third after 401 deaths in the 12 months to the end of June 2025. They included 86 prisoners who died in circumstances recorded as “self-inflicted”. An unprecedented seven homicides were recorded over the same period.
There is deepening concern about the crisis across the Prison Service caused by prison overcrowding, inexperienced staff, gang activity and escalating violence.
In April, three prison officers were attacked by Hashem Abedi, one of the men responsible for the Manchester Arena bombing, and in May an officer was allegedly attacked by the Southport triple murderer Axel Rudakubana.
Over the 12 months to the end of March 2025, prisons recorded 30,846 assaults – a 9% rise on the previous 12 months.
The new figures show that the rate of staff assaults per 1,000 prisoners increased by 7%, while the rate of serious assaults increased by 6%.
Prisons reported a record high of 77,898 incidents of self-harm in the 12 months to the end of March, a rate of one every seven minutes. The rate of self-harm rose by 5% in men’s prisons and by 6% in women’s prisons.
Annual prison performance ratings of prisons for 2024-25 reveal that 22 prisons – nearly 19% – were given a rating of serious concern, the highest number of prisons with this rating since these performance figures were introduced.
The figures also show that 6,231 prisoners were let out under the justice secretary Shabana Mahmood’s early release scheme between September and December. Of those, more than 200 offenders had been jailed for 14 years or more.
Andrew Neilson, the director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, urged the government to intervene to save lives. “Prisons cannot go on like this. It is unconscionable to see the huge rise in deaths in custody, as well as continued spikes in self-harm and in assaults,” he said.
The government has announced plans to use artificial intelligence to predict and prevent violence by offenders. AI will be deployed to more accurately assess the risk that criminals pose so they could be transferred to high-security jails, segregated or placed in special separation units.
AI will also be used to uncover prisoners’ secret communications by scanning the data in confiscated phones for codewords and signals for drug dealing, drone drops and threats of violence.
The measures are part of an “action plan” by ministers to embed AI in the criminal justice system, from AI assistants for all civil servants to process information and write reports, to judges seeking to distil evidence and compose decisions.
Ministers last week announced that staff in male prisons in England and Wales would be issued with Tasers as part of a trial to clamp down on violence.
Figures show that more than £20m has been paid out in damages over five years to staff and prisoners who have been assaulted.
Ministers say they will look at whether the electric stun guns should be more widely used after the trial this summer.
