To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the rate of self-harm was among prisoners in (a) women's prisons and (b) men's prisons in each of the last three years.
Answered on
27 January 2022
The Department publishes statistics on deaths, self-harm and assaults in prison custody in England and Wales in the quarterly Safety in Custody statistics. A spreadsheet containing statistics on all instances of self-harm broken down by category is available, in addition to quarterly bulletins outlining trends at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/safety-in-custody-statistics.
Last year, we implemented a revised version of the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) multi-disciplinary case management approach to support prisoners at risk of suicide or self-harm. We continue to make the Samaritans phone service available and are working with the Samaritans to ensure that the Listener peer support scheme continues to function effectively.
We are also implementing a new safety training package for staff, which addresses related issues, including suicide and self-harm prevention, understanding risks, triggers and protective factors, and communication skills.