There’s a phrase doing the rounds in certain prison wings that should chill anyone who hears it: “Killing in prison is not difficult.” It’s not a boast. It’s a statement of fact, offered with the kind of flat certainty that tells you something has gone very wrong inside our jails.
Violence in English and Welsh prisons has been climbing steadily for years. According to Ministry of Justice figures, there were over 27,000 assault incidents recorded in the 12 months to March 2023, including more than 7,000 on staff. But the raw numbers don’t capture what’s arguably more disturbing: the organised, coerced nature of a growing number of attacks.
Former inmates and prison reform campaigners describe a system in which established gang hierarchies effectively run certain wings. New or vulnerable prisoners are pressured, sometimes through threats to their families on the outside, into carrying out violence on behalf of others. The person holding the blade isn’t necessarily the person who wanted blood drawn.
“You don’t always attack someone because you want to,” one former inmate, speaking to a prison reform charity, explained. “You do it because the alternative is worse.”
This dynamic makes prosecution harder and deterrence almost meaningless. If someone is more afraid of their cellblock hierarchy than of additional charges, the threat of extra time simply doesn’t land.
The Prison Reform Trust has long argued that chronic understaffing is at the root of it. When a single officer is responsible for a wing of 60 or 70 men, the informal power structures fill the vacuum. It’s not complicated. It’s just neglect, compounding over years.
Rehabilitation programmes, meaningful work, proper mental health support, these things cost money and political will. The current state of British prisons reflects how little of either has been invested. The population is at record highs, with over 88,000 people currently behind bars in England and Wales. The pressure is immense.
What’s harder to measure is how normalised this culture has become, not just for those inside, but for the public and policymakers who prefer not to think too hard about what happens behind those walls.
The real question isn’t whether we can fix the violence. It’s whether we’ve decided, quietly and without debate, that we simply don’t have to.
