Prisons: Civil Disorder

(asked on 13th March 2024) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many incidents at height occurred in a prison in England and Wales in each year since 2018.


Answered by
Edward Argar Portrait
Edward Argar
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 20th March 2024

A barricade or prevention of access is an incident where one or more prisoners deny access to all or part of a prison, by use of any physical barrier, to those lawfully empowered to have such access.

An incident at height is any incident that takes place above or below ground level where a person could be injured if they fell from that place. Incidents at height come in many forms, ranging from internal incidents (prisoners on the fall arrest netting or climbing over bars) to an external incident (prisoners on the roof).

The information requested can be found in the HMPPS Annual Digest - Protesting Behaviour data tool: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64c1438a90b545000d3e83c4/7.__Protesting_behaviour_data_tool.xlsx.

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.

The national staffing position in prisons is improving, with a substantial increase of over 1,634 Full-Time Equivalent Band 3-5 prison officers in the 12 months ending 31 December 2023.

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 are providing targeted support to prisons to operate the Challenge, Support and Intervention Plan (CSIP) which provides a framework for managing violence that is centred around the individual needs of prisoners, helping them to move away from violent behaviours.

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