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