(2) how many and what proportion of self-harm incidents in prisons in England and Wales were committed by (a) foreign national prisoners and (b) foreign national prisoners held beyond the expiration of their sentence in each of the last five years.
The National Offender Management Service, (NOMS), has a broad, integrated and evidence-based prisoner suicide prevention and self-harm management strategy that seeks to reduce the distress of all those in prison. This encompasses a wide spectrum of Prison and Department of Health work around such issues as mental health, substance misuse and resettlement. Any prisoner identified as at risk of suicide or self-harm is cared for using the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) procedures, a prisoner-focused care planning system for those at risk, which has helped prisons manage self-harm. Most self-harm is not directly life-threatening, but nevertheless can be extremely distressing for those who have to deal with it. There are no easy answers to preventing self-harming behaviour but we remain committed to finding ways to manage it.
Information on the total numbers of self-harm incidents is not available for the full time period requested (see table note). The following table details the estimated number of individuals who self-harmed from 2004 by type of nationality.
Nationality type 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 EEA—foreign nationals 117 147 163 196 187 Non-EEA—foreign nationals 351 348 413 428 418 UK nationals 4,580 4,982 5,062 5,178 5,458 Unknown 28 22 21 26 25
We do not specifically record whether foreign national prisoners died beyond the date that their sentence was due to expire. The numbers and proportions of self-harm incidents committed by foreign national prisoners in each of the last five years are detailed in the following table.
No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % EEA—foreign nationals 352 2 373 2 397 2 664 3 409 2 Non-EEA—foreign nationals 587 3 584 3 796 4 780 4 810 4 Unknown 52 0 47 0 80 0 65 0 58 0 No. = incidents Notes: 1. The NOMS incident reporting system processes high volumes of data which are constantly being updated. A new system for recording self-harm was introduced in December 2002 and as a result recording improved throughout 2003. Numbers since 2004 are, therefore, not comparable with those collected previously. 2. Figures are approximate numbers of individuals, based on incidents of self-harm where the prisoner number was recorded. 3. The data are drawn from the prison administrative IT systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. Nevertheless, the system provides a sensible indication of the numbers of incidents and individuals who self-harm but the numbers should not be treated as absolute. 4. Self-harm incidents are as reported on the NOMS incident reporting system. Due to transition between computer systems the numbers currently exclude a small proportion collected on the new NOMIS system..