of the United Kingdom stood at approximately 97,800 people, of which 87,900 were in England and Wales, 8,000 in Scotland, and a further 1,900 were in Northern Ireland. According to the Council of Europe, England and Wales had the highest
among UK jurisdictions, with a prisoner population of 136.2 per 100,000 people, slightly above Scotland at 133.2, and Northern Ireland at 90.5. As a comparison, the average
Prison system crisis putting prisoners and staff at risk
Several key indicators suggest the UK prison system is currently facing difficulties in key areas. Prison overcrowding, for example, is an ongoing problem, despite the building of large new
prisons such as HMS Berwyn in Wrexham. In recent months, the prison population of England and Wales has been
operating close to full-capacity, with just 768
spare prison places available in September 2023. Furthermore, there is evidence that prisons are generally becoming more violent places than in the past. Between 2015 and 2020 there was a surge of
assaults at prisons, with both prisoner-on-prisoner violence and staff assaults peaking in the third quarter of 2018. The number of
deaths at prisons in England and Wales reached a high of 371 in 2021, which when adjusted for prisoner population size, was the highest death rate between 1978 and 2023. A significant number of these deaths were due to
prisoner suicides, with 89 taking place across the whole of 2021, and most quarters seeing between 10 and 30 self-inflicted deaths since 2000. There has also been a worrying increase in the amount of
self-harm incidents at prisons, which reached a peak of 16,543 incidents in the first quarter of 2023, compared with 4,442 in the second quarter of 2004.
Prisoner demographics
The vast majority of incarcerated adults in the UK are men, with 87,869 male
prisoners compared to just 3,635 female prisoners in England and Wales in 2024. Similarly, in
Scotland, there were 7,426 men in prison, and 282 women as of the 2022/23reporting year. When looking at the
age profile of prisoners, most are under the age of 40, with the most common age group in England and Wales those aged 30 to 39, with similar patterns among the prison populations of
Scotland and
Northern Ireland. As of 2024 white prisoners were the most common
ethnicity at prisons in England and Wales, at 63,103, compared with 10,624 ck prisoners, 7,067 prisoners, and a further 4,188 of mixed ethnicity. In the same year, the most common
foreign nationality of prisoners in England and Wales was Albanian, at 1,273 prisoners, followed by Polish at 906 prisoners.
This text provides general information. Statista assumes no
liability for the information given being complete or correct.
Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date
data than referenced in the text.
