20 September 2006

Prison Safer Than Nottingham

In my previous post I asked visitors to guess the UK prison homicide rate during the 90s and early 2000s. Everyone over-estimated but based on his prediction of 7 per 100,000, Chris Black gets the baubles. Well done, Chris.

The Mubarek Report - Extracts From Section 6.26 The Bigger Picture

research published by the Home Office shows that in the 12 years from 1990 to 2001 inclusive there were 26 prisoner-on-prisoner homicides... (this) can be contrasted with the 759 cases over the same period in which prisoners committed suicide..."

----- Hat-tip to Croydonian for the graphic -----

"... This equals 2.17 homicides a year and 63.25 suicides per year. Given an average prison population of approximately 55,000 over these twelve years, the above figures equivocate to 3.9 murders per 100,000 (higher than the UK average but lower than Nottingham! - see post below) and a disastrous 115 suicides per 100,000. Interestingly, exactly half of the above murders were by cellmates. The Home Office has a terrible record when it comes to stats. Do you believe these?

6 comments:

Croydonian said...

Quality sleuthing, and most interesting.

Peter Smallbone said...

Sneaky - you had me thinking it was going to be something really high. Stands to reason when you think about it I suppose - prisons are more controlled than Maid Marion Way, and the list of suspects for any prison murder must be pretty small, acting as a disincentive...

Praguetory said...

I lived in Nottingham once - loved it. Did a lot of night-time cycling. Don't recalling feeling threatened except by campus security for not having lights.

Love the disincentive line... The classic do-gooder/bleeding heart would normally argue that nothing can be done to deter criminals other than "being nice to them" and not "socially excluding them".
The stats lends weight to the theory that actually even the worst criminals can be deterred.

Prison murder - something else that happens more on TV than real life.

Croydonian said...

This might amuse:

http://congojoe.net/img/nottingham.jpg

(Work etc safe)

Onlinefocus Team said...

Well, it's good to be right for once.. my guess was simply on the basis that news reports of murders in prison are pretty rare....

Anonymous said...

Frankly not surprised murder rate that low; after all if you don't murder anyone IN prison your sentence is halved and you can get back out on the streets and choose who to murder from a wider pool of innocent people..