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Prisoners: Suicide

Answer

The Government publishes statistics on deaths in custody quarterly, and updated detailed tables annually. These figures cover only England and Wales. They can be viewed at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/632625/safety-in-custody-quarterly-bulletin-mar-2017.pdf

In the twelve months to June 2017, there were 97 apparent self-inflicted deaths in custody.

Improving safety is a priority for this Government. We are investing £100m a year to strengthen the frontline by recruiting around 2,500 more prison officers by the end of 2018. We are rolling out improved training across the estate for staff on suicide and self-harm reduction and have put in place specialist roles - regional safer custody leads - in every region to provide advice to prisons and to spread good practice on identifying and supporting prisoners at risk. We are providing grant funding to the Samaritans to support the prisoner Listener scheme and are providing an additional funding in 2017-18 to fund a number of other projects, including a learning tool for staff and emotional resilience training for prisoners.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL879

Session

2017-19

Subjects

Prisoners Suicide

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk