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20 Jan 2003 : Column 191W—continued
Prison Overcrowding
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which prisons were overcrowded in (a) 1992, (b) 1998 and (c) 2002; and by what percentage each was above optimal occupancy; and what definition of overcrowded he uses. [89548]
Hilary Benn: A prison is overcrowded when the number of prisoners held at the prison exceeds its total in use certified normal accommodation (CNA). The CNA of a prison measures its capacity to accommodate prisoners in uncrowded conditions. Operational Capacity is defined as the total number of prisoners that an establishment can hold without serious risk to good order, security and the proper running of planned regimes.
Those prisons where average population for the year exceeded the average CNA for the periods 1992–93, 1998–99 and April to November 2002 are shown in the table.
At no time during the periods 1998–99 and April to November 2002 was the average population in any prison
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At no time during the periods 1998–99 and April to November 2002 was the average population in any prison above its operational capacity. Comparative data on operational capacity is not available for 1992–93.
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Prison Population
Paul Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what changes have occurred in the (a) numbers and (b) percentages of (i) women and (ii) men imprisoned in each of the past five years; and what his estimate is of the likely changes in the next three years. [90265]
Hilary Benn: The number of people in prison in England and Wales in each of the last five years is given in the table.
| Year | (38)Male | (38)Female | (39)Male | (39)Female |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 62,194 | 3,105 | 95.2 | 4.8 |
| 1999 | 61,523 | 3,247 | 95.0 | 5.0 |
| 2000 | 61,252 | 3,350 | 94.8 | 5.2 |
| 2001 | 62,560 | 3,740 | 94.4 | 5.6 |
| 2002 | 66,824 | 4,394 | 93.8 | 6.2 |
(38) Number
(39) Percentage of total population
Projections of the male and female prison population are given in Home Office Statistical Bulletin "Projections of Long Term Trends in the Prison Population to 2009", a copy of which is in the Library.
Prison Suicides
Bob Russell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people committed suicide in prisons in each of the past five years; of these, how many took place in safe cells; and if he will make a statement. [90362]
Hilary Benn: The following table covers the 422 apparently self-inflicted deaths between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2002. There have been six deaths of prisoners located in safer cells in the last five years.
| Year | Total self-inflicted deaths | Total self-inflicted deaths in safer cells |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 83 | 0 |
| 1999 | 91 | 0 |
| 2000 | 81 | 0 |
| 2001 | 73 | 2 |
| 2002 | 94 | 4 |
| Total | 422 | 6 |
The Prison Service employs the term "self-inflicted death" which includes all those
deaths where it appears the person may have acted specifically to take his/her own life.
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The Prison Service has "safer cells" that can complement a regime providing care of at risk prisoners. The design of these cells has several features which can assist staff in the task of managing those at risk from suicide, such as specially designed furniture and fixtures which are manufactured and installed to make the attachment of ligatures very difficult, and access to window bars prevented via non-opening windows with integral ventilation grills.
The Prison Service is half way through a three-year programme to develop policies and practices to reduce prisoner suicide and self-harm in prisons. This work includes increasing the numbers of safer cells and making safer cell furniture more easily available to establishments. To date installations have been carried out to provide 2,100 adult male and 610 juvenile and young offender safer cells. In addition a further 880 adult male safer cells are planned to come on line in 2003–04. Prototypes for large-scale production of safer cell furniture aim to reduce the current cost of safer cell furniture installations by approximately one third.
Prisoner Costs
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average cost is of maintaining a prisoner in (a) Class A, (b) Class B, (c) Class C and (d) open prison. [89547]
Hilary Benn: The average cost per prisoner for 2001–02 by category of prison is given in the table.
These figures are establishment costs only, expressed in resource terms and exclude any share of headquarters overheads. Establishment cost per prisoner figures cannot therefore be compared with the overall Prison Service cost per prisoner figure, which includes all expenditure.
| Category | Average establishment cost per prisoner 2001–2002 (£) |
|---|---|
| Dispersal (Cat A) prisons | 42,443 |
| Category B prisons | 24,059 |
| Category C prisons | 18,828 |
| Open prisons | 21,267 |
Prisons (Drugs)
Paul Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of (a) male and (b) female prisoners tested positive for illicit drugs in each British prison in the last year for which figures are available. [90267]
Hilary Benn: Mandatory drug testing (MDT) is part of the wider Prison Service drug strategy. It was introduced with three objectives: to deter prisoners from misusing drugs through the threat of being caught and punished; to supply better information on patterns of drug misuse to improve the targeting of treatment
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services and to measure the effectiveness of the overall strategy; and to identify individuals in need of treatment.
The table sets out the percentage of prisoners who tested positive under random mandatory drug testing MDT in the last financial year (2001–02) in each prison in England and Wales. The names of the female prisons are highlighted in italic:
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Paul Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much was spent in each of the past three years in prisons to deal with misuse of (a) illegal drugs and (b) alcohol; and what has been the cost of the monitoring of illegal drugs in prisons in each of the last three years. [90268]
Hilary Benn: The centrally-committed funding to deal with the misuse of illegal drugs in prisons for each of the last three years is:
| £ million | |
|---|---|
| 2000–01 | 26.3 |
| 2001–02 | 52 |
| 2002–03 | 61 |
Details of locally-committed drug funding, funding to address alcohol misuse and the costs of monitoring are not held centrally.
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