Deaths and self-harm in prisons in England and Wales have dropped back from recent record highs, according to the latest official figures.
The Ministry of Justice’s quarterly Safety in Custody statistics recorded 360 deaths in the 12 months to September 2026. That is 12 per cent fewer than the 411 deaths in the year before.
Self-inflicted deaths fell sharply, from 97 to 66. There were five homicides, down from six. Between 2019 and 2024, prisons recorded between one and three homicides a year. In each of the past two years, the figure has been five or six.
Self-harm
The self-harm figures cover a different period, running to the end of June. Over the year to that date, incidents fell by 10 per cent.
Self-harm went down in both men’s and women’s prisons. Even so, the rate in women’s jails stayed nine times higher than in men’s.
Assaults
Assault incidents across the estate fell by 4.3 per cent on the previous year. Men’s prisons drove that fall. In women’s prisons, the number of assaults rose over the 12 months and reached the highest level on record.
The assault rate takes account of the size of the prison population as well as the number of incidents. Over the 12 months to June 2026 it dropped by 4.1 per cent. The rate of serious assaults, by contrast, went up. Women’s prisons saw their assault rate climb by 8 per cent. Men’s prisons saw a fall of 4.9 per cent. The rate in women’s jails was almost double that in men’s.
Over the same 12 months, the rate of assaults on staff dropped by 9 per cent. It fell by 11 per cent in men’s prisons but rose by 8 per cent in women’s prisons.
Assaults by one prisoner on another fell by 1.6 per cent, to a rate of 239 incidents per 1,000 prisoners. Men’s prisons recorded a 2.1 per cent fall, while women’s prisons recorded a 9 per cent rise.
Pia Sinha, chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust, welcomed the falls in deaths, self-harm and assaults. She said: “Although there is no room for complacency, the decreases in deaths, self-harm and assaults across the prison estate are welcome. It will be important to understand the factors underlying these trends so they can be built upon.”
She added that the rise in assaults in women’s prisons, against the overall trend, “is an issue of concern and requires urgent attention”.
