PRISON VIOLENCE ON RISE IN ENGLAND, WALES

Sun 03 August 2025:

Violence in prisons across England and Wales has increased over the past year, according to new figures released by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) on Thursday.

The latest safety in custody statistics show a 9% rise in overall assaults in the 12 months to March 2025, with 30,846 recorded incidents-the equivalent of 356 assaults per 1,000 prisoners.

However, the most recent quarterly data suggests the rate of assaults has stabilized.

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Assaults on prison staff also rose, up 7% over the year, with 10,568 incidents-122 per 1,000 prisoners. Despite the annual increase, staff assaults fell by 2.5% in the latest quarter.

Serious assaults in jails climbed by 6% year-on-year to 3,402 incidents, or 39 per 1,000 prisoners. The number includes an 8% rise in serious prisoner-on-prisoner violence, although serious assaults on staff fell by 2%.

The number of homicides in prisons also rose sharply, with seven recorded in the 12 months to June 2025-up from none the previous year.

Andrew Neilson, the director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, urged the government to intervene to save lives. “Prisons cannot go on like this. It is unconscionable to see the huge rise in deaths in custody, as well as continued spikes in self-harm and in assaults,” he said.

The government has announced plans to use artificial intelligence to predict and prevent violence by offenders. AI will be deployed to more accurately assess the risk that criminals pose so they could be transferred to high-security jails, segregated or placed in special separation units.

AI will also be used to uncover prisoners’ secret communications by scanning the data in confiscated phones for codewords and signals for drug dealing, drone drops and threats of violence.

The measures are part of an “action plan” by ministers to embed AI in the criminal justice system, from AI assistants for all civil servants to process information and write reports, to judges seeking to distil evidence and compose decisions.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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