Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data his Department holds on the number and proportion of prisoners who have self-harmed in (a) each of the last 12 months and (b) each year since 2010.

We publish the number of self-harming individuals and self-harming individuals per 1,000 prisoners for each year within the Government’s Safety in Custody Statistics: Self-Harm annual tables. The table at 2.1 provides the number of self-harming individuals and self-harming individuals per 1,000 prisoners for number and proportion for each year since 2010.

The below table sets out the number of self-harming individuals and self-harming individuals per 1,000 prisoners in each month between July 2021 and June 2022.

Number and Rate of Individuals Self-harming by Month

Data Sources and Quality

These figures have been drawn from the HMPPS Incident Reporting System. Care is taken when processing and analysing returns but the detail is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although shown to the last case, the figures may not be accurate to that level.

Figures include incidents occurring at youth establishments, HMPPS operated Immigration Removal Centres and during contracted out escorts, but exclude incidents at Medway STC.

In prisons, as in the community, it is not possible to count self-harm incidents with absolute accuracy. In prison custody, however, such incidents are more likely to be detected and counted. Care needs to be taken when comparing figures shown here with other sources where data may be less complete.

Numbers of individuals should be treated as approximate, as the details of prisoners are not always recorded against each self-harm incident.

The monthly rate is based on the number of self-harming individuals in that month and the prison population as at the last day of that month. It is not directly comparable to the annual rate, which is based on the number of self-harming individuals at any point in that year and the average prison population for each month within the year.