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Self inflicted deaths and harm in prison custody.
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1. Main facts and figures
- over the period studied, White prisoners were more likely to take their own life than prisoners from all other ethnic groups
- between 2011 and 2015, the number of self-inflicted deaths for White prisoners rose from 51 to 77
- the number of self-inflicted deaths for prisoners from the other ethnic groups was too small to draw firm conclusions
Things you need to know
All deaths in prison custody are subject to a police investigation and a coroner’s inquest. The outcome of the investigation and inquest will sometimes lead to deaths being reclassified, so all figures for the last 2 years are provisional.
Prisoners had self-reported their ethnicity.
Estimates based on a larger number of prisoners are generally more reliable. The smaller numbers of prisoners from the Asian, Black, Mixed and Other ethnic groups mean that estimates for these groups are less reliable than estimates for White people.
What the data measures
The data measures the number and rate of self-inflicted death per 1,000 prisoners in England and Wales per calendar year from 2011 to 2015. The data is broken down by ethnicity.
Self-inflicted deaths in prison are tracked by Prison and Probation Service, formerly the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). Rates are published in the NOMS Offender Equalities statistics bulletin, while the number of incidents is published in the Ministry of Justice’s Safety in Custody statistics bulletin.
Self-inflicted deaths include both suicides, and cases where prisoners unintentionally caused their death (which corresponds with the definition for suicide used by the Office for National Statistics for the general population).
The ethnic categories used in this data
Prisoners reported their own ethnicity according to the following broad categories:
- Asian/Asian British
- Black/African/Caribbean/Black British
- Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups
- White
- Other (including Chinese)
2. Self-inflicted deaths per 1,000 prisoners by ethnicity over time
| Asian | Black | Mixed | White | Other/Chinese | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Asian Rate | Asian Number | Black Rate | Black Number | Mixed Rate | Mixed Number | White Rate | White Number | Other/Chinese Rate | Other/Chinese Number |
| 2011 | 0.5 | 3 | 0.2 | 2 | 0.3 | 1 | 0.8 | 51 | 1.0 | 1 |
| 2012 | 0.5 | 3 | 0.4 | 4 | 1.6 | 5 | 0.8 | 49 | 0.0 | 0 |
| 2013 | 0.9 | 6 | 0.7 | 8 | 0.6 | 2 | 1.0 | 60 | 0.0 | 0 |
| 2014 | 0.5 | 3 | 0.4 | 4 | 0.6 | 2 | 1.3 | 80 | 0.0 | 0 |
| 2015 | 0.7 | 5 | 0.3 | 3 | 0.9 | 3 | 1.2 | 77 | 1.0 | 1 |
Download table data for ‘Self-inflicted deaths per 1,000 prisoners by ethnicity over time’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Self-inflicted deaths per 1,000 prisoners by ethnicity over time’ (CSV)
Summary of Self-inflicted deaths in prison custody Self-inflicted deaths per 1,000 prisoners by ethnicity over time Summary
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in 2015 there were 77 self-inflicted deaths among White prisoners, at a rate of 1.2 per 1,000 prisoners
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this was a higher rate than all other ethnic groups, which had 12 self-inflicted deaths in total in the same period
3. Methodology
To calculate the prisoner population, a 12-month average (based on prisoner counts done at the start of every month) was used where this data was accessible. This data was not accessible for the prisoner population by age or by ethnicity, so quarterly data was used to calculate the prisoner population.
Ethnicity is based on self-reporting by prisoners and has not been independently validated. About 95% of prisoners reported their ethnicity for each year of the period studied.
Incidents are marked as ‘not recorded/unknown’ when prisoner details were either not available or not recorded in full at the time of the incident.
Information is provided by prisons and published by the Ministry of Justice after data checks are completed.
Suppression rules and disclosure control
Values of 2 or fewer prisoners have been suppressed to protect confidentiality. (No incident numbers have been suppressed.)
Rounding
Rates per 1,000 are rounded to 1 decimal place.
Related publications
Quality and methodology information
4. Data sources
Source
NOMS annual offender equalities report: 2015 to 2016
Type of data
Administrative data
Type of statistic
Official statistics
Publisher
Ministry of Justice
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
This data is used by government to inform policy development, to monitor the impact of changes over time and to model future changes and their impact on the prison system.
5. Download the data
This file contains the following: ethnicity, year, value, and numerator