Assault information is recorded at establishment level where it should be categorised into one of four categories “Prisoner on Prisoner”, “Prisoner on Officer”, “Prisoner on Other” and “Other”. The recorded incidents of assaults on prison officers are not completely exclusive to officers, establishment recording sometimes includes assaults on other prison staff in this category.
Information from incidents which have been categorised as “Prisoner on Officer” and “Prisoner on Other” is provided in the following table. This may be over-inclusive and contain some assaults on visitors and official visitors.
Reliable data for 1997-99 are not centrally available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Number 2000 1,929 2001 2,366 2002 2,538 2003 2,553 2004 2,803 2005 3,176 2006 3,159 20071 1,210 1 Up to 31 May 2007. Notes: 1. The numbers of incidents of assaults reported here are derived from the Prison Service Incident Reporting System (IRS). This system processes high volumes of data supplied by prisons and is constantly being updated. The numbers indicated here provide a useful indication of the realistic scale of assaults incidents, many of which are relatively minor. The numbers should not be interpreted as absolute. 2. The increase in reported numbers of assaults reflects, in part, the increase in prison population. 3. There is a slight lag in reporting which means that the provisional number mentioned here will rise a little in the coming months. 4. Numbers need to be interpreted with caution as some assault incidents may involve more than one assaulter or more than one victim, e.g. one or more prisoners and a member of staff. The numbers refer to the number of incidents not the number of prisoners and others involved.