Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) murders of staff and prisoners, (b) riots, (c) assaults on staff, (d) instances of prisoner self-harm, (e) instances of prisoner suicide, (f) instances of improper mobile telephone use and (g) absconders from open conditions have occurred in prisons in the last 12 months.

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is committed to running safe establishments. Violence of any kind in prison is not tolerated and all assaults are treated extremely seriously. Any prisoner who commits an act of violence can expect to have action taken against them.

NOMS has launched a new Violence Reduction project, which has been created to gain better understanding of the causes of the current levels of violence in prisons and to make sure that there is strengthened handling of it, in terms of both prevention and response.

There is no central record of persons having been convicted of Prison staff murders. On 29 June 2015 at Blackfriars Crown Court, Lorraine Barwell, a Serco Prisoner Custody Officer, was assaulted and sadly died of her injuries. The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is currently undertaking an investigation into the incident. The NOMS Investigator is working with the Metropolitan Police to ensure that the ongoing Murder investigation is not compromised.

NOMS Incident Reporting does not record riot as an incident type.

Latest published figures on prisoner deaths (homicide and self-inflicted), self-harm and assaults in prison custody in England and Wales can be found in the safety in custody publication at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/safety-in-custody-quarterly-update-to-december-2014-and-annual This publication provides statistics on deaths to the end of March 2015 and assaults and self-harm to the end of December 2014.

Latest published figures on absconds can be found in the prison and probation management information addendum at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-and-probation-trusts-performance-statistics-201314