When the high court ordered up to 10,000 striking prison officers back to work on Tuesday, it put an end to a 24-hour walkout organised by the Prison Officers’ Association (POA). The officers were protesting about chronic staff shortages and growing levels of violence and self-harm in prisons.
The officers’ concerns are backed up by the data, which shows declining staff levels and an increase in assaults on staff. The prison population in England and Wales remained relatively stable between 2010 and 2015, at around 85,000, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
However, during the same period officer numbers were reduced by almost a third, while assaults on staff soared. The total number of full-time staff was cut by more than 10,000, to 23,746, reducing the number of prison officers, supervising officers, custodial and other managers. By the end of 2015, there were 3.6 inmates for each operational prison staffer, 1.1 more than in 2010. In addition, the number of assaults on staff per 1,000 increased from 34 to 58 in the same time period, according to figures from the MoJ.
