Written question asked by Chris Ruane (Labour) on Thursday, 13 July 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 17 July 2006. It was answered by Gerry Sutcliffe (Labour) on Monday, 24 July 2006 on behalf of the Home Office.

Custody

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many incidents of self-harm and abuse of children and young adults in custody have been recorded (a) in the past 12 months and (b) since 2000, broken down by sex of victim.

Answer: The information available centrally is incomplete and could be misleading, because different categories of secure establishment have used different counting methods. The Youth Justice Board is currently working with the Prison Service, operators of secure training centres and secure children's homes to agree common recording standards and reporting practices for statistical data. We believe this will both improve the quality and increase the range of available aggregated information about young people in custody.

Secondary information