Most violent jails named in list of shame
CRISIS Birmingham prison THE scale of violence and self-harm in prisons after 7,000 officers were fired in Tory cuts is laid bare today.
The five jails with the worst record are named in a written answer to MPs.
Birmingham is top with 928 assaults per 1,000 inmates. Bristol is second with 841, followed by Leicester, Bedford and Chelmsford, Essex.
Exeter is worst for selfharm, with 1,041 incidents per 1,000 inmates.
Andrew Neilson, of the Howard League for Penal Reform, blamed the violence on “a shameful policy to allow the number behind bars to grow unchecked while starving prisons of resources”.
Ministers are scrambling to recruit 2,500 officers to avert complete disaster.