Dr Robert Jones at the Wales Governance Centre has just published the latest fact file, Prisons in Wales , that looks at data from 2023. The report, which relies on freedom of information requests to get Welsh criminal justice data, shows a consistent worsening trend.  

Questions raised over prison safety in Wales  

The latest data set from the Wales Governance Centre shows concerning trends regarding safety in custody. This data is unsurprising, when Prison capacity is under immense strain, staffing levels are a concern, and prison regimes are under pressure.  

There are also some concerning trends relating to custody rates and length of sentences served by women from Wales. In the North Wales police area in 2023, 43% of women sentenced to immediate custody at the magistrates’ court in North Wales received a sentence of one month or less, which compares less favourably with the other Welsh police areas. North Wales OPCC bought its diversion service under its in-house Checkpoint provision, and these stats bring into question just how successfully this is operating in a gender-specific trauma-informed way.  

The findings from this FOI request are not overly reliable, as there is a lack of readily available Welsh data in criminal justice. This is why Clinks believes there should be regular disaggregated Welsh criminal data. 
. Until data is made routinely available, we will continue to highlight the findings and issues raised by the invaluable work of Dr Robert Jones and his team at the Wales Governance Centre through the work they do on the fact file.  

Welsh criminal justice agencies and the Welsh Government need to work together to achieve better outcomes for those in the criminal justice system and to do more to reduce the number of people entering it.    

Prison Safety  

• Of the 13 deaths recorded across the Welsh prison estate in the 6 months to June 2024, 12 were at HMP Parc.

• At least four of the deaths recorded at HMP Parc in 2024 are believed to be linked to substance misuse and have added to mounting concerns about the availability of drugs at the prison. Ministry of Justice data show that there was a 46 % increase in the number of drug finds at HMP Parc in 2023/24, along with a 185 % rise in the amount of drug equipment found at the prison.

• There were 14 self-inflicted deaths in Welsh prisons between 2020 and 2023. The majority of these deaths took place at HMP Cardiff.

• Prisoner-on-prisoner assaults in Welsh prisons increased by 80 per cent in 2023. Assaults on staff rose by 69 %, and self-harm incidents recorded in the Welsh prison estate increased by 53% last year.

• The largest increases in assaults on staff (109%), self-harm (113%), and self-harm incidents requiring hospital treatment (190%) were all recorded at HMP Parc in 2023. 

• Of the 12,914 individuals who self-harmed in prison in England and Wales in 2023, 890 had a recorded origin address in Wales.  

Prison Population  

• The Welsh prisoner population increased to its highest level (5,034) in 2023 since the Wales Governance Centre began collecting disaggregated data 

• Over a quarter (28% ) of Welsh people in prison were being held in English prisons in 2023.  

Women  

• Based on the Ministry of Justice’s latest prison population projections, the number of Welsh women in prison will increase from 245 to 285 by the end of 2027  

• All Welsh women in prison continue to be imprisoned in England, with Welsh women held in 11 of the 12 women’s prisons in England in December 2023 

• Almost one in five (18%) of all women sentenced to immediate custody at courts in Wales were handed sentences of one month or less in 2023 

• On average, one woman a week was sentenced to prison for one month or less at the magistrates’ court in Wales in 2023. 

Race & Disproportionality   

• Those belonging to a Black ethnic group in Wales were the most overrepresented ethnic group in prison in 2023. Welsh individuals from a White ethnic background were the only group to be under-represented in prison 

• There were 54 Black people from Wales in prison for every 10,000 of the population in 2023. This rate compared to just 15 White people per 10,000 of the population 

• For every 10,000 Black people living in Wales, 81 were under probation supervision in 2023. This compared to a rate of 63 per 10,000 for individuals from a Mixed background, 43 for White and 37 for those from an Asian ethnic group 

• The average custodial sentence length in Wales between 2010 and 2023 was 8.6 months higher for Black defendants (25.3 months) than defendants from a White ethnic group (16.7 months) 

• Between 2012 and 2023, almost two-thirds (63 per cent) of all Black defendants were remanded into custody at the Crown Court in Wales. This compares to just under half (48%) of White defendants.  

Remand & recalls  

• At HMP Cardiff, just under half (47 %) of all prisoners were being held there on remand in 2023. This compares to just under a third (31 %) of prisoners in 2019 

• The number of Welsh prisoners on remand in 2023 reached its highest level (730) since the Wales Governance Centre began collecting data broken down by sentence type 

• Prisoners who have been recalled to custody have contributed significantly to rising Welsh prisoner numbers. The number of Welsh people in prison who had been recalled to custody increased by 17% in 2023 

• In 2023, almost a third (30 %) of the Welsh prison population was either on remand or in prison, having been recalled to custody. 

Homelessness  

• At a time when concerns are being raised about the impact of the UK Government’s early release scheme on prisoner homelessness, data show that 500 people managed by Welsh probation services were recorded as rough sleeping on the day of their release from prison in 2023/24 

• 602 people were released from Welsh prisons without a fixed address to  

• return to in 2023/24 

• On average, five people a week were released from HMP Cardiff as homeless in 2023/24.  

Who is accountable for Criminal Justice in Wales?  

Unfortunately, we have seen very little positive change from the 2022 data, and we would like to again state our firm belief that we need Welsh-specific data routinely available. We feel that there are compelling reasons for the UK Government to publish Welsh data. Last year in our blog  we surmised that ensuring we have access to Welsh-specific data, will enable the monitoring of the impact of UK Government criminal justice policy on Welsh people in prison and Welsh prisons, as well as how Welsh Government policy is affecting those in the criminal justice system would lead to greater accountability when it comes to justice delivery in Wales. A point we also made in front of the Welsh affairs committee in the UK Parliament.   

When looking at the data provided on Welsh women, we have to ask the question about how effective policy designed to divert women from custody has been. In 2019, the joint Welsh Government and MoJ Women in Justice Blueprint was published; in 2022, the Welsh Government reiterated its commitment to diverting women away from the justice system in its Delivering Justice for Wales strategy, whilst the data from this fact file suggests that the number of Welsh women within the justice system is increasing. We recently had the One Wales service commissioned, and this service, as well as other voluntary & community sector organisations, do important and positive work to improve justice outcomes for Welsh women. If we had a routine disaggregated Welsh data set, those organisations would be able to use that data to evidence need and identify where there are gaps in services. 

Welsh-specific data needs to be made available routinely, and this data is accessible. The Wales Governance Centre relies on FOI, and that method of gathering Welsh data is unsustainable and makes monitoring and comparison more difficult. Clinks, in our response to the Welsh Affairs Committee inquiry for Wales-only data routinely published as part of statistics releases, it would help to improve understanding of specific measures that apply in Wales and so help improve outcomes by supporting the identification of good practice.  
 
We would like to reiterate that call again here.