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14 Sep 2009 : Column 2147W—continued
Prisoners: Females
Mrs. May: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the (a) certified normal accommodation and (b) total capacity to house female prisoners is. [291104]
Mr. Straw: On 31 July 2009, the total in use certified normal accommodation (CNA) of the female estate was 4,632 and the total operational capacity was 4,822.
Prisoners: Libya
Mr. Hague: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many Libyan prisoners have been requested to be transferred to Libya since the ratification of the prisoner transfer agreement with the Libyan government signed in November 2008; and what transfers have taken place under the agreement. [290636]
Mr. Straw: One prisoner serving a sentence of imprisonment in England and Wales has sought transfer to a prison in Libya under the provisions of the UK/Libya prisoner transfer agreement. His request is currently under consideration. No prisoners have yet been transferred to Libya.
The transfer of prisoners to Libya from Scotland is a matter for Scottish Ministers. The transfer of prisoners from Northern Ireland to Libya is a matter for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
Prisoners: Parole
Mr. Moss: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prisoners on parole from Whitemoor Prison (a) breached their parole terms and (b) his Department has lost touch with in each of the last 15 years; and if he will make a statement. [290670]
Mr. Straw: Centrally held information on those prisoners released on licence and who are subsequently recalled cannot be broken down by the prisons from which the offenders were initially released. To provide the information requested would require a manual check of individual records and this would incur disproportionate costs.
Prisoners: Suicide
Andrew Stunell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how many prisoners have been placed on suicide watch while serving a custodial sentence of each type in each of the last five years; [291111]
(2) how many prisoners have attempted suicide while serving a custodial sentence of each type in each of the last five years; [291112]
(3) how many and what proportion of prisoners have committed suicide while serving a custodial sentence of each type in each of the last five years. [291113]
Claire Ward: Information on 'suicide watches' is not collated or held by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). 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 proactively identifying prisoners at risk of suicide and self-harm. At-risk prisoners are cared for using Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) procedures. Detailed data are not readily available however some 31,000 ACCT plans are opened each year. These can be opened repeatedly for the same prisoner. There are no easy answers to managing self harming behaviour but NOMS remains committed to finding ways to manage it.
Without exploring the intent behind a self-harm incident, it is difficult to establish such an incident as an attempted suicide. NOMS does not record intent, and does not hold information on attempted suicides. Table 1 shows annual totals of self-harm incidents by type of custody. Although intent is not recorded and the majority of incidents are not life threatening, analyses show that approximately 1.7 per cent. of all self-harm in prison involves hanging as a method or require resuscitation or hospitalisation on life support.
| Table 1: Self harm incidents by type of custody: England and Wales | |||||
| Number of incidents( 1. 2) | |||||
| 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | |
| (1) These figures have been drawn from the NOMS incident reporting system and exclude a small proportion on incidents using the new NOMIS system. Care is taken when processing and analysing the returns but the data collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although the figures are shown to the last individual the figures may not be accurate to that level. (2) In prisons, as in the community, it is not possible to count self harm incidents with absolute accuracy. In prison custody, however, such incidents are more likely to be detected and counted. (3) A new indeterminate sentence "Imprisonment for Public Protection was introduced in 2005 and numbers of prisoners held on such sentences have been increasing. They are considered to be an existing high risk group and so the increase in this category if offset elsewhere. (4) The apparent high number of unrecorded custody status arises from the fact that many self harm incidents occur in the early stages of custody at which time IT systems may not have had been fully updated. | |||||
Every death in prison is a tragedy, and affects families, staff and other prisoners deeply. Ministers, the Ministry of Justice and NOMS are completely committed to learning from each death and to reducing the number of such incidents. Good care and support from staff save many lives, but such instances go largely unreported. Prisons successfully keep safe in any given month approximately 1,500 prisoners assessed to be at particular risk of suicide or self harm. Deaths in prisons are among the most scrutinised of all incidents and each case is subject to a police investigation and independent investigation by the Prisons Probation Ombudsman. Robust systems are in place for monitoring deaths and learning from them.
The numbers and proportions of self-inflicted deaths by type of custodial sentence, for each of the last five years, are detailed in table 2.
| Table 2: Self-inflicted deaths in prison custody( 1) by type of custody: England and Wale | ||||||
| 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | ||
| (1) Deaths in prison custody figures include all deaths of prisoners arising from incidents during prison custody They include deaths of prisoners while released on temporary license (ROTL) for medical reasons but exclude other types of ROTL where the state as less direct responsibility. Approximately one third of the deaths in prison custody shown here actually occur in hospitals or hospices. | ||||||
Prisons
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what (a) ships, (b) hospitals and (c) other sites in public ownership other than sites owned by the Ministry of Defence representatives of his Department have (i) visited to assess and (ii) considered for use as prison sites since 1 June 2005; and on what date each such visit took place. [286760]
Mr. Straw: Site searches are conducted both by National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and external agents on their behalf. NOMS do not hold full and complete records of those searches conducted by agents as this information is retained by them and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Some information is held centrally by NOMS, but this does not include dates of visits.
The following shows the ships and berths that have been visited and/or assessed and considered for prison use between 2006 and 2008. Information for 2005 is not held centrally and can be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Bibby Altona
MV Scotia Prince
Bibby Renaissance
Southampton
Portland
Harwich
Barrow-in-Furness
Birkenhead
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