The prison where self-harm incidents happen almost twice daily

A jail, which receives prisoners from Kirklees Magistrates Court, has reported record levels of self-harm.

HMP Leeds, also known as Armley Jail, recorded 712 incidents of self-harm last year.

That's almost two incidents daily at the prison which receives male defendants who have been remanded in custody by Kirklees magistrates.

The number of incidents recorded in 2017 was almost a third (30%) greater than the previous year when 548 incidents of self-harm were recorded.

This was more than five times the number of self-inflicted injury incidents that were reported in 2014.

The number of incidents has grown each year reaching a record high last year, although this may be due to under-reporting of such incidents in previous years.

Indeed, last year, there were 38 occasions in which an HMP Leeds inmate had deliberately hurt himself so badly that he had to be treated in hospital.

But the category B jail, which holds convicts as well as those on remand, was not the worst prison in England and Wales for self-harming.

Eastwood Park women’s prison in South Gloucestershire has the worst self-harm problem in the prison system.

Overall, female prisoners were almost five times as likely as male prisoners to self-harm.

About half of prisoners who self-harmed did so once, with women more likely than men to do so on more than one occasion.

Some 872 different prisoners were found to have self-harmed 10 or more times.

In total there were 44,651 cases of self-harm in prisons in England and Wales in 2017, or about five per hour.
This was a record high for the system.

Andrew Neilson, Director of Campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “The disclosure that assaults and incidents of self-injury have been under-reported further illustrates the chaos that we have seen in our overcrowded and under-resourced prison system in recent years.

“With incidents of self-injury happening every 11 minutes, with assaults occurring every 17 minutes and with six people dying in prison every week, the government must act boldly and decisively to prevent more bloodshed behind bars.

“Reducing the number of people in prison would save lives, protect staff and prevent more people being swept into deeper currents of crime, violence and despair.”

A Prison Service spokesperson said: “The number of self-inflicted deaths and self-harm in prisons is too high which is why we are rolling out new training for staff on suicide and self-harm prevention — this has reached more than 14,000 staff.”