Source · Select Committees · Justice Committee
Recommendation 26
26
Deferred
Paragraph: 137
Require MoJ and HMPPS to set out work addressing violence across the female estate.
Recommendation
It is concerning that the rate of violent incidents across the female estate rose during the pandemic. Whilst we acknowledge that the pandemic may have contributed to the increase, the MoJ and HMPPS should set out what work is being done to address the level of assault across the female estate and to prevent it from increasing further.
Government Response Summary
The government accepted the recommendation but responded by detailing changes to the Basic Custody Screening Tool for data collection and efforts through the £19.7m BOLD programme to understand children affected by parental incarceration, rather than outlining work to address violence levels.
Paragraph Reference:
137
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
We accept this recommendation. Changes were made in February 2022 to the Basic Custody Screening Tool (BCST) which is used to collect this information on reception into prison. We are awaiting early indications of figures to determine whether the self-declared nature of this information provides a clear understanding of the scale of the problem. The Prison Strategy White Paper also committed to work with OGDs to improve our collective understanding of the overall number of children affected by parental incarceration. Through the Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) programme, we are investigating opportunities for improved data sharing, including data held by other government organisations, to allow us to better identify prisoners with children. BOLD is a £19.7m Shared Outcomes Fund project, which seeks to enable better evidenced, joined- up and more effective cross government services through linking data across government.