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News Archives: Index

October 7, 2010: Probation Set For Industrial Action

October 5, 2010: Turning Prisoners Into Taxpayers

October 4, 2010: Murder Changes Now In Force

September 20, 2010: Probation Programmes Face Cuts

August 24, 2010: Victorian Poor Law Records Online

August 10, 2010: Justice Job Cuts

July 28, 2010: Prison Violence Growing

July 22, 2010: Police Numbers: Latest Figures

July 22, 2010: New Jurisdiction Rules

July 16, 2010: CCJS On Prison And Probation Spending Under Labour

July 15, 2010: Latest Statistics On Violent And Sexual Crime

July 15, 2010: Latest National Crime Figures

July 15, 2010: New Chief Prisons Inspector

July 14, 2010: Hard Times Ahead For Prisons: Anne Owers

July 14, 2010: Prison Does Not Work: Ken Clarke

July 13, 2010: Criminal Justice Reform: Sentencing and Rehabilitation

July 13, 2010: Criminal Justice Reform Priorities

July 12, 2010: What Price Public Protection, Asks Probation Chief Inspector

July 12, 2010: NOMS has failed, says Napo

July 10, 2010: IPCC To Investigate Death of Raoul Moat

July 9, 2010: Women In Prison: New Report

July 9, 2009: Unjust Deserts: Imprisonment for Public Protection

July 8, 2010: Police Search Powers Change

July 7, 2010: Make 'Legal High' Illegal, Says ACMD

July 2, 2010: Failing Children In Prison

July 2, 2010: Police Buried Under a Blizzard of Guidance: HMIC

July 1, 2010: Freedom To Change The Law?

June 30, 2010: A New Outlook On Penal Reform?

June 30, 2010: Revolving Door Of Offending Must Stop, Says Clarke

June 30, 2010: Ken Clarke: Speech on Criminal Justice Reform

June 29, 2010: No More Police Targets

June 26, 2010: Family Intervention Projects Questioned

June 25, 2010: Cutting Criminal Justice

June 24, 2010: Napo on Sex Offenders Report

June 23, 2010: Closing Courts: The Cuts Begin

June 23, 2010: Strategy To Tackle Gangs

June 15, 2010: Courts and Mentally Disordered Offenders

June 8, 2010: Working With Muslims in Prison

June 1, 2010: Your Chance To Nominate a QC

September 23, 2004: Research on prisoner-on-prisoner homicide

The Home Office Research Development and Statistics (RDS) website has just published report by Ghazala Sattar on Prisoner-on-prisoner homicide in England and Wales.

The Report is downloadable here. While research in western countries suggests that prisoner homicide is increasing, up to now little had been known about the situation in England and Wales. Sattar has undertaken a descriptive study of the nature and extent of prisoner-on-prisoner homicides in England and Wales between 1990 and 2001. The main findings:

  • There was an average of two homicides per year from 1990 to 2001 (26 in total).
  • Two-thirds of the 26 murders were in high security and local prisons.
  • Twelve victims were in shared cells and 11 had been killed by their cellmate.
  • Victims were likely to be young, white, male, repeat offenders who were serving a sentence for violence, robbery or drugs offences. They were also more likely to be housed in shared cells. (This profile is similar to that of assailants and the general prison population.)
  • The most common motive was an altercation between prisoners, though there were also drug- and debt-related motives. In one case the attack was recorded as being racially motivated