Violence soars in region's prisons

Jul 26 2009 by Tom Mullen, Sunday Sun

Notes

1. These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems. Care is taken when processing and analysing the returns but the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although shown to to the last number the figures may not be accurate to that level.

2. Details of incidents may be udated from time to time as more information becomes available. All figures provided here should be treated as provisional.

3. Details of injuries are as reported by staff at the time of the incident.  They provide a guide as to the range of injuries but should not be treated as confirmed clinical diagnoses.

4. Injuries identified following an incident, e.g. bruising, may have arisen as a result of a prisoner's medical condition and not necessarily as a direct result of the incident being reported.

5. The requirement to attend hospital is a function of the severity of an injury and the availability of health care facilities within a prison.  The numbers shown refer to attendance at an outside hospital as an inpatient.  They exclude other types of hospital attendance including A & E visits.  As injuries are associated with incidents and not named individuals attendance at hospital may not necessarily be all prisoners.

6.  As injuries are associated with incidents and not named individuals attendance at hospital may not necessarily be all prisoners.

7. The injuries listed will be mostly inflicted by prisoners on prisoners.  As more than one injury may apply in a particular incident and a victim may have more than one injury type the interpretation of these figures needs to be undertaken with extreme care.