Prisoners: Suicide

(asked on 10th June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data his Department holds on the rate of self-inflcted deaths among (a) people serving sentences under imprisonment for public protection and (b) the prison population.


Answered by
Robert Buckland Portrait
Robert Buckland
This question was answered on 18th June 2019

The Government publishes quarterly statistics on self-inflicted deaths in prison, and a more detailed annual breakdown, which is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/safety-in-custody-quarterly-update-to-september-2018

Table 1.1 of the document ‘Deaths in prison custody 1978-2018’ shows the rate of self-inflicted deaths for the prison population in each calendar year. In 2018 the rate was 1.12 per 1000 prisoners.

Table 1.11 of the same document shows the number of self-inflicted deaths among those serving sentences of imprisonment for public protection in each calendar year. In 2018 there were 5 such deaths. This was at a rate of 1.38 per 1,000 IPP prisoners. Figures such as this for rates should be considered with caution when derived from relatively small numbers of events.

The Government is taking unprecedented action to improve safety in prisons, including redoubling our efforts to prevent self-inflicted deaths. We have recruited over 4,700 more prison officers since October 2016, and we now have the greatest number in post since early 2012. This is allowing us to implement the key worker role, allowing staff dedicated time to provide support to individual prisoners.

We are improving support for prisoners in their early days in custody and working to improve the multi-disciplinary ACCT case management process for those at risk of suicide or self-harm.

We have rolled out a revised and improved Introduction to Suicide and Self-harm Prevention course. This is being completed by all new staff and as refresher training by all existing staff. Nearly 25,000 staff have already begun this training and over 14,000 have completed all six modules.

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