The data contain records of sentenced offenders released from the custody of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) during fiscal year 2003. The data include commitments of United States District Court, violators of conditions of release (e.g., parole, probation, or supervised release violators), offenders convicted in other courts (e.g., military or District of Columbia courts), and persons admitted to prison as material witnesses or for purposes of treatment, examination, or transfer to another authority. Records of offenders who exit federal prison temporarily, such as for transit to another location, to serve a weekend sentence, or for health care, are not included in the exiting cohort. These data include variables that describe the offender, such as age, race, citizenship, as well as variables that describe the sentences and expected prison terms. The data file contains original variables from the Bureau of Prisons' SENTRY database, as well as "SAF" variables that denote subsets of the data. These SAF variables are related to statistics reported in the Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics, Tables 7.9-7.16. Variables containing identifying information (e.g., name, Social Security Number) were replaced with blanks, and the day portions of date fields were also sanitized in order to protect the identities of individuals. These data are part of a series designed by the Urban Institute (Washington, DC) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Data and documentation were prepared by the Urban Institute.

The HMIP (His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons) Prisoner Surveys (also formerly known as Detainee Surveys) are part of the Inspectorate's duties to inspect prisons. Surveys of prisoners have been carried out systematically since 2000 at institutions being inspected, to gain important insight into detainees' experiences of offender management whilst in custody.

Prisoners are issued with the survey questionnaire to return to the HMIP team, which processes the data to inform inspections of individual institutions and the HMIP annual reports.

The survey is grouped into topics/themes of questions with response categories, as well as providing space for prisoners to add additional comments (such text comments are not included in these datasets).

The specific objectives of the HMIP Prisoner Survey series are as follows:

• to produce data that are comparable as possible over time and between custodial institutions;
• to provide data for a large and representative sample of adult prisoners in England and Wales. So far, over 20 years' worth of data has been collected. The survey conducted in 2020/21 was subject to HMIP COVID-19 restrictions.

Further information can be found on the HMIP Prisoner Survey webpage.

End User Licence and Special Licence versions

Two versions of the HMIP Prisoner Survey are held at UKDS: an End User Licence (EUL) version (SN 9161) that is subject to registration and standard access conditions, and a more detailed Special Licence (SL) version (SN 9068), which has additional access restrictions. The document 'end_user_licence_group_changes', available with the EUL version, SN 9161, details the differences between the two versions. Users should obtain the EUL version first to see whether it is suitable for their needs before considering making an application for access to the SL version.

Latest edition information

For the third edition (October 2024), data and documentation for 2023/24 were added to the study.

This is qualitative data collection of semi-structured interviews conducted between December 2019-October 2020 within a study that examined how the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (seek to) effect change in prisons following prisoner suicides and how death investigations could have more impact on prison policy and practice. The study ran from 2019-2021. Internationally, prisoner mortality rates are up to 50% above those in the community. Although prisoner deaths are frequent and have significant implications across a broad range of stakeholder groups, these harms are rarely acknowledged. We address this by examining how the PPO (seek to) effect change in prisons following prisoner suicides and how death investigations could have more impact on prison policy and practice from semi-structured interviews with multisectoral stakeholders. Within this project, 46 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with multisectoral stakeholders: 17 PPO staff (who work across England and Wales from a base in London), 8 prison Governing Governors (representing 8 prisons), 11 regional SCGLs (representing all but two regions nationally) and 9 Coroners (who represent 9 of the 92 separate coroners’ jurisdictions in England and Wales) and bereaved family members (n=1). These professional groups have received limited consideration in previous research despite International laws, e.g. Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, requiring that all deaths in state detention are independently investigated. In England and Wales, prisoner deaths are externally investigated by at least the police, PPO and Coroner. These police, ombudsman and coroner investigations can be very disruptive and cause uncertainty and anxiety for all involved. The research demonstrates how the harms of prisoner deaths and investigations are broadly unacknowledged and radiate widely. We sought to stimulate both i) more substantive support for all those caught up in prison suicides and death investigations and ii) reconsideration of how prisoner deaths are investigated. For data storage and analysis purposes, the participants were divided into four categories: 1) Prison and Probation Ombudsman staff (PPO); 2) Governing Governors (Governors); 3) Safer Custody Group Leads (SCGLs); 4) Coroners (coroners); 5) bereaved family members (prisoner family). Because of the sensitivity of this research 3 SCGL transcripts have been omitted due to the participants still being identifiable following transcript anonymisation. Further information about the project and links to publications are available on the University of Nottingham SafeSoc project webpage https://www.safesoc.co.ukIn May 2019, Dutch courts refused to deport an English suspected drug smuggler, citing the potential for inhuman and degrading treatment at HMP Liverpool. This well publicised judgment illustrates the necessity of my FLF: reconceptualising prison regulation, for safer societies. It seeks to save lives and money, and reduce criminal reoffending. Over 10.74 million people are imprisoned globally. The growing transnational significance of detention regulation was signalled by the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture/OPCAT. Its 89 signatories, including the UK, must regularly examine treatment and conditions. The quality of prison life affects criminal reoffending rates, so the consequences of unsafe prisons are absorbed by our societies. Prison regulation is more urgent than ever. England and Wales' prisons are now less safe than at any point in recorded history, containing almost 83,000 prisoners: virtually all of whom will be released at some point. In 2016, record prison suicides harmed prisoners, staff and bereaved families, draining ~£385 million from public funds. Record prisoner self-harm was seen in 2017, then again in 2018. Criminal reoffending costs £15 billion annually. Deteriorating prison safety poses a major moral, social, economic and public health threat, attracting growing recognition. Reconceptualising prison regulation is a difficult multidisciplinary challenge. Regulation includes any activity seeking to steer events in prisons. Effective prison regulation demands academic innovation and sustained collaboration and implementation with practitioners from different sectors (e.g. public, voluntary), regulators, policymakers, and prisoners: from local to (trans)national levels. Citizen participation has become central to realising more democratic, sustainable public services but is not well integrated across theory-policy-practice. I will coproduce prison regulation with partners, including the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, voluntary organisations Safe Ground and the Prison Reform Trust, and (former) prisoners. This FLF examines three diverse case study countries: England and Wales, Brazil and Canada, developing multinational implications. This approach is ambitious and risky, but critical for challenging commonsensical beliefs. Interviews, focus groups, observation and creative methodologies will be used. There are three aims, to: i) theorise the (potential) participatory roles of prisoners and the voluntary sector in prison regulation ii) appraise the (normative) relationships between multisectoral regulators (e.g. public, voluntary) from local to (trans)national scales iii) co-produce (with multisectoral regulators), pilot, document and disseminate models of participatory, effective and efficient prison regulation in England and Wales (and beyond) - integrating multisectoral, multiscalar penal overseers and prisoners into regulatory theory and practice. This is an innovative study. Punishment scholars have paid limited attention to regulation. Participatory networks of (former) prisoners are a relatively new formation but rapidly growing in influence. Nobody has yet considered agencies like the Prisons Inspectorate and Ombudsman alongside voluntary sector organisations and participatory networks, nor their collective influences from local to transnational scales. Nobody has tried to work with all of these agencies to reconceptualise prison regulation and test it in practice. Findings will be developed, disseminated and implemented internationally. The research team will present findings and engage with diverse stakeholders and decision makers through interactive workshops (Parliament, London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham), and multimedia outputs (e.g. infographics). This FLF has implications for prisons and detention globally, and broader relevance as a case study of participatory regulation of public services and policy translation. Within this project, 46 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with: 17 PPO staff (who work across England and Wales from a base in London), 8 prison Governing Governors (representing 8 prisons), 11 regional SCGLs (representing all but two regions nationally) and 9 Coroners (who represent 9 of the 92 separate coroners’ jurisdictions in England and Wales) and bereaved family members (n=1). The sample was purposive for all groups, as appropriate for our exploratory analysis and the resources available, however the sample is not representative of all staff in the groups we interviewed. Face to face interviews were conducted with PPO participants in December 2019. Due to the COVID pandemic, SCGL, Governing Governor, Coroner and bereaved family member interviews were undertaken by telephone and Microsoft TEAMS audio calls (at the participant’s preference) between July and October 2020.

The Realities Checked Study provides the first systematic and comprehensive account of the crime and criminal justice experiences of Gypsies and Travellers in England since the 1960s. Motivated by the need to challenge and critique popular stereotypes that portray Gypsies and Travellers as inherently criminal, the study seeks to provide a nuanced understanding of the community’s experiences with crime and the criminal justice system. The study’s primary aims were to examine: Gypsies’ and Travellers’ direct and vicarious perceptions of criminal victimisation, hate crimes, and offending; the role of perceived racism and discrimination in shaping offending behaviour and experiences with criminal justice; the impact of criminalisation, policing, punishment, and imprisonment on individuals and communities; and the rationales behind professional engagement with Gypsies and Travellers in the areas of crime, justice, and social policy.

Conducted between October 2020 and June 2023, this dataset employs a mixed-methods approach, including a crime survey of 400 participants of Gypsy and Traveller heritage, 40 oral histories with Gypsy and Traveller community members, 27 oral histories with Gypsy and Traveller prisoners, and interviews with 54 professionals working with Gypsy and Traveller communities. Research took place across England, including Leeds, Norfolk, the South-East (London, Sussex, and Surrey), Devon, and Cornwall. Participants included Gypsies and Travellers living roadside, on sites, on private plots, and in bricks-and-mortar housing. The crime survey focused on gathering data about the frequency of discrimination, racism, and crime experienced by Gypsies and Travellers. The oral histories explored participants’ life stories, including childhood, young adulthood, and experiences with crime. Professional interviews examined the work of professionals and organisations engaging with Gypsies and Travellers in relation to crime and criminal justice.

Historical accounts show that since the arrival in England and Scotland of Romani Gypsies in the fifteenth century, and of Irish Travellers in the nineteenth century, they have been associated with criminal offending. Since then Gypsies and Travellers (G&Ts) have become entrenched in popular, media and political imaginations as criminal predators, bringing property crime, violence, fraud, tax evasion and anti-social behaviour to settled communities. Yet despite five centuries' of such categorisation, there is surprisingly no rigorous evidence assessing the validity of such claims nor systematic assessments of G&Ts' experiences of victimisation. No existing sources of evidence from self-report offending surveys, archival accounts, oral histories, ethnographic or qualitative research can provide an estimate of G&T patterns of offending. Neither can they tell us about how frequently G&Ts are the victims of non-racially motivated crime (e.g. assault, burglary, theft) or hate crimes. This is particularly concerning given the Global Attitudes Survey found 50% of UK respondents held negative views of G&Ts, over double the proportion holding unfavourable attitudes towards Muslims, who have often been the victims of hate crimes. Estimates of offending, victimisation and hate crime are available for other minority ethnic groups.

This interdisciplinary study will produce the first comprehensive, historicized account of G&T experiences of victimisation, crime and criminal justice in two urban and two rural areas of England. Specifically, it will comprise:

(i) a crime survey involving researchers and G&T interviewers looking at G&T victimisation by personal crime (e.g. assault, hate crime) and crimes against the household/family (e.g. burglary, fraud). It will assess attitudes to, and contact with, the police (including stop and search), courts, probation, and prisons. The survey will also ask questions about G&Ts' use of alcohol/drugs and involvement in property, fraud, and violent offences as offenders. It will survey self-ascribing G&Ts who vary by gender, age and settlement (roadside living, official/private caravan sites, unauthorised encampments, and private/social housing);

(ii) community and prisoner oral histories to investigate whether offending over individual lifetimes is linked to experiences of racism and discrimination, and to explore the effects of actions by the police, courts, probation and prisons on G&T individuals and communities;

(iii) interviews with local professionals who have engaged with G&Ts in a variety of contexts, both operationally and strategically (e.g. police officers, Victim Support, housing officers, councillors, Police and Crime Commissioners). These will seek to find out the ways in which G&Ts and their lifestyles are understood and responded to in formal policies and operationally on the ground, as well as documenting where support services may need to be targeted in...

This is qualitative data collection of semi-structured interviews conducted between June-July 2023, and online surveys conducted throughout 2022, within a study that examined how the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (seek to) effect change in prisons following prisoner suicides and how verbatim film can help to increase the impact of research findings. The study ran from 2021-2023. Prisoner suicide rates are consistently higher than rates among communities living outside. Between 2012 and 2016, England and Wales’s prison suicide rates more than doubled, hitting record numbers in 2016. Often those most invested in prison safety are those personally impacted, and campaigns by prisoners’ families can have material effects. This project included a collaboration between an academic research team, a bereaved parent and a theatre company, which aimed to raise awareness of prison suicide through verbatim film and communicate key messages to stakeholders across criminal justice.In May 2019, Dutch courts refused to deport an English suspected drug smuggler, citing the potential for inhuman and degrading treatment at HMP Liverpool. This well publicised judgment illustrates the necessity of my FLF: reconceptualising prison regulation, for safer societies. It seeks to save lives and money, and reduce criminal reoffending. Over 10.74 million people are imprisoned globally. The growing transnational significance of detention regulation was signalled by the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture/OPCAT. Its 89 signatories, including the UK, must regularly examine treatment and conditions. The quality of prison life affects criminal reoffending rates, so the consequences of unsafe prisons are absorbed by our societies. Prison regulation is more urgent than ever. England and Wales' prisons are now less safe than at any point in recorded history, containing almost 83,000 prisoners: virtually all of whom will be released at some point. In 2016, record prison suicides harmed prisoners, staff and bereaved families, draining 385 million punds from public funds. Record prisoner self-harm was seen in 2017, then again in 2018. Criminal reoffending costs £15 billion annually. Deteriorating prison safety poses a major moral, social, economic and public health threat, attracting growing recognition. Reconceptualising prison regulation is a difficult multidisciplinary challenge. Regulation includes any activity seeking to steer events in prisons. Effective prison regulation demands academic innovation and sustained collaboration and implementation with practitioners from different sectors (e.g. public, voluntary), regulators, policymakers, and prisoners: from local to (trans)national levels. Citizen participation has become central to realising more democratic, sustainable public services but is not well integrated across theory-policy-practice. I will coproduce prison regulation with partners, including the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, voluntary organisations Safe Ground and the Prison Reform Trust, and (former) prisoners. This FLF examines three diverse case study countries: England and Wales, Brazil and Canada, developing multinational implications. This approach is ambitious and risky, but critical for challenging commonsensical beliefs. Interviews, focus groups, observation and creative methodologies will be used. There are three aims, to: i) theorise the (potential) participatory roles of prisoners and the voluntary sector in prison regulation ii) appraise the (normative) relationships between multisectoral regulators (e.g. public, voluntary) from local to (trans)national scales iii) co-produce (with multisectoral regulators), pilot, document and disseminate models of participatory, effective and efficient prison regulation in England and Wales (and beyond) - integrating multisectoral, multiscalar penal overseers and prisoners into regulatory theory and practice. This is an innovative study. Punishment scholars have paid limited attention to regulation. Participatory networks of (former) prisoners are a relatively new formation but rapidly growing in influence. Nobody has yet considered agencies like the Prisons Inspectorate and Ombudsman alongside voluntary sector organisations and participatory networks, nor their collective influences from local to transnational scales. Nobody has tried to work with all of these agencies to reconceptualise prison regulation and test it in practice. Findings will be developed, disseminated and implemented internationally. The research team will present findings and engage with diverse stakeholders and decision makers through interactive workshops (Parliament, London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham), and multimedia outputs (e.g. infographics). This FLF has implications for prisons and detention globally, and broader relevance as a case study of participatory regulation of public services and policy translation. Within this project, 2 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with film co-creators and 27 anonymous online surveys were completed by audience members in film screenings. The sample was purposive for all groups, as appropriate for our exploratory analysis and the resources available, however the sample is not representative of collaborative film creators or audiences. Telephone and videoconferencing (Microsoft TEAMS) interviews (at the participant’s preference) were conducted with filmmakers between June and July 2023. Anonymous online surveys were completed at film screenings between March and November 2022.

This publication contains the official statistics about uses of the Mental Health Act ('the Act') in England during 2022-23. Under the Act, people with a mental disorder may be formally detained in hospital (or 'sectioned') in the interests of their own health or safety, or for the protection of other people. They can also be treated in the community but subject to recall to hospital for assessment and/or treatment under a Community Treatment Order (CTO). In 2016-17, the way we source and produce these statistics changed. Previously these statistics were produced from the KP90 aggregate data collection. They are now primarily produced from the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS). The MHSDS provides a much richer data source for these statistics, allowing for new insights into uses of the Act. People may be detained in secure psychiatric hospitals, other NHS Trusts or at Independent Service Providers (ISPs). All organisations that detain people under the Act must be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). In recent years, the number of detentions under the Act have been rising. An independent review has examined how the Act is used and has made recommendations for improving the Mental Health Act legislation. In responding to the review, the government said it would introduce a new Mental Health Bill to reform practice. This publication does not cover: 1. People in hospital voluntarily for mental health treatment, as they have not been detained under the Act (see the Mental Health Bulletin). 2. Uses of section 136 where the place of safety was a police station; these are published by the Home Office.

The experiences of men referred to NHS Talking Therapies while residing in prison, including demographic characteristics, wait times, appointments and outcomes, England, 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2020.