Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many prisoners serving an imprisonment for public protection sentence (1) took their own life, or (2) died from other causes, in 2023.

Every death in custody is a tragedy and we continue to do all we can to improve the safety of prisoners

We have implemented a revised version of the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) case management approach across the prison estate which is used to support people at risk of suicide or self-harm in prison. Revisions in ACCT v6 include: a stronger emphasis on taking a person-centred approach; better multi-disciplinary team working; a consistent quality assurance process and an improved focus on identifying and addressing an individual’s risks, triggers and protective factors.
To support the implementation of ACCT v6 we are developing and introducing a new safety training package for staff (called Safety Support Skills training). It brings together related safety topics, including suicide and self-harm prevention, understanding risks, triggers and protective factors, and encourages a joined-up approach to prison safety.
We have also worked with Samaritans to develop a postvention response to providing support in the period following a self-inflicted death in order to reduce the risk of further deaths. This has been implemented across the adult male estate, and the roll out of an adapted version of the approach in the women’s estate will shortly be completed. Our grant to Samaritans includes funding for this service to be maintained until March 2025.

In 2023, 17 prisoners serving an imprisonment for public protection sentence died in custody, 9 of these were classified as self-inflicted deaths.

(1) Deaths in prison custody figures include all deaths of prisoners arising from incidents during prison custody. They include deaths of prisoners while released on temporary license (ROTL) for medical reasons but exclude other types of ROTL where the state has less direct responsibility.
(2) An indeterminate sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) was introduced in 2005. It was intended for high risk prisoners considered ‘dangerous’ but whose offence did not merit a life sentence. The number of prisoners held on this sentence increased initially and the increase was offset by reductions elsewhere

(3) Figures include incidents at HMPPS run Immigration Removal Centres and during contracted out escorts. Figures do not include incidents at Medway STC

(4) The self-inflicted deaths category includes a wider range of deaths than suicides. When comparing figures with other sources it is important to determine whether the narrower suicide or broader self-inflicted deaths approach is in use.

Data Sources and Quality
These figures are derived from the HMPPS Deaths in Prison Custody database. As classification of deaths may change following inquest or as new information emerges, numbers may change from time to time.

Please note that all deaths in prison custody are subject to a coroner’s inquest. It is the responsibility of the coroner to determine the cause of death. The HMPPS system for classifying deaths provides a provisional classification for administrative and statistical purposes. The final classification is only determined at inquest. Figures dependent on classification of deaths should therefore be treated as provisional.

It remains a priority for this Government that all those serving the IPP sentence receive the support they need to progress towards safe release from custody or, where they are being supervised on licence in the community, towards having their licence terminated altogether. In that respect, the Lord Chancellor, announced on 28 November 2023, this Government is taking changes forward in the Victims and Prisoners Bill to reform legislation relating to the termination of the licence for IPP offenders by making amendments to section 31A of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997.

The new measure, subject to the views of Parliament, will:
a. reduce the qualifying period which triggers the duty of the Secretary of State to refer an IPP licence to the Parole Board for termination from ten years to three years;
b. include a clear statutory presumption that the IPP licence will be terminated by the Parole Board at the end of the three-year qualifying period;
c. introduce a provision that will automatically terminate the IPP licence two years after the three-year qualifying period, in cases where the Parole Board has not terminated the licence, so long as the offender is not recalled in that period; and
d. introduce a power to amend the qualifying period by Statutory Instrument;

The Government was particularly persuaded by the Justice Select Committee’s (JSC) recommendation to reduce the qualifying licence period from 10 years to five years – a recommendation in their IPP inquiry report published on 28 September 2022. We are going further: reducing the period to three years. These amendments will restore greater proportionality to IPP sentences by reducing the qualifying period to three years and providing a clear pathway to a definitive end to the licence and, therefore, the sentence.

The safety workstream will actively support Prisons to deliver improvements to safety of those serving an IPP sentence. We plan to;
• Continue to raise staff awareness of the heightened risk of self-harm, suicide and violence of IPP prisoners.
• Monitor, analyse and share any changing or emerging trends in published IPP prisoner data to inform and update guidance where appropriate

• Share internal and external learning, initiatives and communications to inform and enable prisons to support IPP prisoners at risk of self-harm, suicide and violence.
• Develop and pilot a IPP safety toolkit, based on positive practice, to support prisons to improve their approach to IPP prisoners and encourage local innovation.