Asked by: Antony Higginbotham (Conservative - Burnley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that prison officers are safe at work.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Prison Officers are some of our finest public servants, and we do not underestimate the challenges faced by everyone working in prisons. We are committed to making prisons a safe place to work and providing prison officers with the right support, training and tools to empower them to do their jobs.
We have recruited more than 4,300 new prison officers over the last two years, and this has given us the capacity to implement the key worker role which will help us deal with emerging threats and to improve safety. We’re also investing £2.75 billion to transform the estate, to make prisons safer and cut crime behind bars.
We are rolling out body worn cameras, police-style restraints and PAVA incapacitant spray to prison officers to help them do their job more safely.
In light of recent developments concerning Covid-19, we have put in place robust contingency plans in consultation with Public Health England and the Department of Health and Social Care. This includes specific advice for staff on steps they should take should they become unwell, or if they have been exposed to Covid-19.
Asked by: Antony Higginbotham (Conservative - Burnley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of offenders convicted of serious offences have reoffended within 12 months of their release from prison in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This Government is committed to reducing reoffending by ensuring all offenders have the tools they need to turn their backs on crime. The Ministry of Justice regards every crime as serious, so does not group offence types on that basis. The ‘Proven Reoffending Type Data Tool, January to December 2016, England and Wales’ can be used to look at the various reoffending rates for specific offence categories:
As an example, from this toolkit, the relevant reoffending rates for a selection of index offences were:
Proven reoffending of adult offenders released from custody, by selected index offence type (January-December 2016 cohort) | ||
Offence | Number of Reoffenders | Reoffending Rate (%) |
Violence against the person | 3,505 | 36.1% |
Sexual | 356 | 14.1% |
Robbery | 830 | 31.4% |
Drug | 1,387 | 23.5% |
Possession of Weapons | 1,212 | 45.7% |
Note:
The January-December 2016 cohort in the table above refers to all adult offenders in the calendar year who were released from custody. A proven reoffence is then defined as any offence committed in a one-year follow-up period that resulted in a court conviction or caution in this timeframe or a further six month waiting period to allow time for cases to progress through the courts.
The index offence is the proven offence that leads to an offender being included in the cohort.