London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Oct 10, 2025

Prisons chaos fuels massive legal costs as violence surges

Prisons chaos fuels massive legal costs as violence surges

Shock figures reveal £30m-a-year claims as experts blame cuts and overcrowding
Boris Johnson is under renewed pressure to deal with the prisons crisis after it emerged that the chaotic conditions are behind a £30m-a-year bill for legal claims.

Figures obtained by the Observer reveal that the prison and probation service in England and Wales has paid out more than £85m over three years for issues such as attacks on staff and prisoners, lost and damaged property, accidental personal injury and delays to inmates being released.

Lawyers and prison experts blamed fewer and inexperienced officers struggling to cope with overcrowded and often violent jails. They also warned that the government’s plans for more police and harsher sentences risked making the prisons crisis even worse.

Some 14 officers had to be treated after an outbreak of violence at Feltham young offender institute in west London on Friday. The Ministry of Justice said the disturbance lasted about 25 minutes. A report on the centre published in the summer identified high levels of violence and self-harm.

There have been repeated warnings about conditions inside many prisons, with violence against prison officers at a record high. There were 10,424 assaults on staff in the 12 months to June, an increase of 10% on the previous year. Recent cases include a new officer requiring stitches in the neck after being attacked with a razor blade, another being doused with sugared boiling water, and an officer’s car being torched in a prison car park. Staff have been attacked with weapons fashioned from food trays, toilet brushes and wood screws.

Nick Hardwick, a former chief inspector of prisons, said: “The prison system is in crisis. The awful level of violence and self-harm, and the extraordinary compensation figures, are signs that significant parts of the prison system are out of control.

Boris Johnson’s promises of longer sentences for serious offences and more police will lead to a new surge in the prison population and pile more pressure on an already struggling system.

“They will not be able to get new prisons built or suitably experienced staff in place in time to cope with these additional pressures. I know that senior staff in the prison system are extremely concerned. They are right to be.”

Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service resisted a lengthy campaign that tried to force it to reveal the cost of legal action taken by officers and inmates as a result of prison violence. However, the service did reveal the overall amount it had paid out in litigation claims. The bill came to just over £26m in 2016-17, rose to £29.3m in 2017-18 and increased again to £29.7m in 2018-19.

Prison officers and reform campaigners suggested this was further evidence of a service under intense strain. The most recent annual review of prisons found that violence against both staff and prisoners had increased at more than half the jails inspected over the previous year, while in some prisons the figures had doubled.

The prison service said that litigation costs covered a range of areas outside of violence, including lost property and personal injuries as a result of accidents. It added that the government had committed to spend £2.75bn to help improve safety and create 10,000 extra prison places. The figures included data relating to claims brought over a number of years, which were settled in the past three years.

“We are taking action to reduce the cost of compensation to the taxpayer by addressing issues in prisons that can lead to claims and improving our case handling,” a spokesman for the prison service said.

A huge reduction in prison staff ordered by the coalition government of 2010 to 2015 has been blamed for the deterioration in the conditions inside prisons. While officer numbers are increasing, Nick Davies, from the Institute for Government, said that the inexperienced workforce was a “likely cause” of the rising legal bill.

Mick Pimblett, from the Prison Officers’ Association, said there was now a “vicious circle” within prisons and called for more protection for staff. “They can’t recruit staff or retain staff,” he said. “That means you have to lock the prisoners up for longer without purposeful activity. They then become frustrated. When they become frustrated, they become violent.”

Hardwick said: “The main cause of the crisis has been the loss of experienced staff. Prison security depends much more on relationships between staff and prisoners than it does on locks and bars, and effective relationships require experienced staff. Staff numbers were cut by 25% after 2012. The cuts are now being reversed but new staff are leaving almost as fast as they are being recruited.”

The prison service spokesman said: “We successfully defend two-thirds of claims, and when prisoners are awarded compensation we make sure they pay their victims back first. We are spending an extra £2.75bn to improve safety in our jails – creating 10,000 additional prison places and introducing tough airport-style security to clamp down on the illicit items which fuel violence.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
×