Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-01-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) working at height and (b) concerted indiscipline incidents have been recorded in each prison since May 2010.

Andrew Selous

The vast majority of incidents at height are minor in nature and resolved quickly and professionally without injury, damage or disruption to the running of the prison. Many are short in duration, lasting less than 15 minutes and the majority occur when prisoners go onto netting on prison wings. Each incident is investigated fully to ensure lessons are learnt and best practice in managing incidents is shared across NOMS.

These figures show that the Prime Minister and Justice Secretary are right and our prisons badly need reform. We are making progress: we have made it illegal to smuggle new psychoactive substances (NPS) into prisons and have trained over 300 sniffer dogs to detect NPS and are trialling the use of body worn cameras with front-line staff. But the only way to reduce disorder and violence in our prisons is to give those who work in prisons the tools necessary to better reform and rehabilitate offenders.

The table below provides numbers of incidents at height reported between May 2010 and November 2015, broken down by establishment. The information requested on concerted indiscipline incidents can be found in my response to PQ 28151.

Number of Incident at Height by prisons, England and Wales, May 2010 to November 2015