More than 70 assaults took place in jails every day last year, analysis shows.
Research by the House of Commons library, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, showed there were 26,912 assaults recorded in jails in England and Wales in 2023, an average of 74 a day.
Of those, 3,205 – or eight a day – were classed as ‘serious assaults’.
Just over 9,200 of the total, or 25 a day, were inflicted on staff, with 825 of those classed as serious.
The overall total was up 28 per cent from the 21,015 recorded the previous year, and the highest number since 2019 when there were 30,302.
Out of the nine years of data analysed in the research, assaults peaked in 2018 with 32,539 incidents.
Although the prison population has risen over the period, the rate of assaults has fallen.
In 2018 there were 394 assaults per 1,000 inmates, but in 2023 it was 315 per 1,000.
The rate of serious assaults on staff fell from 12 per 1,000 inmates in 2018 to 10 per 1,000 last year.
More than 70 assaults took place in jails across the UK every day last year, a 28 per cent increase from the previous year. HMP Wandsworth (pictured) recorded the most incidents with 1,044, including 571 on staff
HMP Berwyn (pictured), in Wrexham, has the next highest number with 783
Josh Babarinde, Liberal Democrat MP for Eastbourne said the government must create an ‘urgent plan to make prisons safer’
The research also revealed the country’s most violent prisons, with HMP Wandsworth in south-west London, recording the most incidents with 1,044, including 571 on staff.
HMP Berwyn, in Wrexham, has the next highest number with 783, followed by HMP Thameside, in south-east London, with 667.
Liberal Democrat spokesman Josh Babarinde MP said: ‘This is a crisis that needs to be gripped by the new government with the utmost urgency.
‘It is no wonder that hard-working prison officers are leaving in their droves when many drive to work fearing they may leave in the back of an ambulance.
‘The new government must come forward with an urgent plan to make our prisons safer.
‘They must recruit and retain more prison officers, tackle the criminal courts backlog, and invest properly in rehabilitation to reduce re-offending.’
He blamed the previous Conservative government for leaving the jails in ‘utter chaos’.
‘With this staggering number of assaults and rates of re-offending through the roof, the Conservatives have left a system that is failing prison staff, failing victims, and failing our communities,’ the Lib Dem said.
‘Their neglect of our justice system is unforgivable, and their former ministers should hang their heads in shame for this shambolic legacy.’
