Prison Service: Crimes of Violence and Sexual Offences

Ministry of Justice written question – answered at on 10 February 2020.

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Photo of Richard Burgon Richard Burgon Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of (a) assaults, (b) serious assaults and (c) sexual assaults on prison staff were carried out against (i) prison officers, (ii) probation officers, (iii) educational staff, (iv) health-care staff and (v) other staff in the 12 months to September in each of the last 10 years.

Photo of Richard Burgon Richard Burgon Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of assaults on prison staff that included the use of (a) new psychoactive substances and (b) urine and excreta resulted in the hospitalisation of those staff in the 12 months to September in each of the last 10 years.

Photo of Richard Burgon Richard Burgon Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of assaults on (a) prison officers, (b) probation officers, (c) educational staff, (d) health-care staff and (e) other staff prison staff that included the use of (a) new psychoactive substances and (a) urine resulted in hospitalisation in the 12 months to September in each of the last 10 years.

Photo of Lucy Frazer Lucy Frazer The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice

Violence against our hardworking staff is completely unacceptable and will never be tolerated, which is why we have doubled the maximum prison sentence for anyone who assaults prison officers. Those who commit more serious offences can be imprisoned for far longer.

We are giving officers tools like PAVA pepper spray and body-worn cameras to make their jobs safer.

More widely, we are spending £100 million to bolster prison security, clamping down on the weapons, drugs and mobile phones that fuel violence and crime behind bars. This will fund tough security, body scanners and phone-blocking technology.

The numbers of assaults, serious assaults and sexual assaults on staff are published annually. They are broken down into prison officers and other staff. The most recent go up to December 2018 and can be seen via https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/safety-in-custody-quarterly-update-to-september-2019. The next set of annual data will be published on 30 April.

The numbers of prison staff admitted to hospital following the throwing of urine and/or excreta in the last ten calendar years are in the table below. HM Prison & Probation Service does not hold data that would show whether a prisoner was under the influence of psychoactive substances when assaulting a member of staff.

2009

0

2014

2

2010

0

2015

0

2011

0

2016

1

2012

0

2017

3

2013

0

2018

1

I regret that, apart from this, to provide figures to the level of detail requested could be done only at disproportionate cost.

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