Jailed: Incarceration in England and Wales

On being in jail in England and Wales overview of establishement locations and prisoner profiles England and Wales has one of the highest rates of incarceration in Western Europe, with around 150 people per 100,000 currently held in prison. The prison population shows a number of social exclusion characteristics and circumstances such as poor literacy and numeracy skills, housing problems, unemployment, mental health problems, drug and alcohol abuse. Mental distress is prevalent, notably leading to high rates of self-harm amongst prisoners. The combined United Kingdom prison population, with Scotland and Northern lIreland, now stands at around 95,000 prisoners. Cast away and forgotten about, these men, women, youth and children are split between prisons, Youth Offender Institutes, Immigration Removal Centres and Foreign National Prisons. The number of prisoners having dramatically increased over the last fifteen years, the prison system as a whole has been overcrowded in every year since 1994. I Foreign Nationals Prison I Immigration Removal Centre I Prison establishment I Contracted Prison I Female prison Prison population 1% O Home General population 1% O Symptom 1% O Ran away from home as a child School I High-security prison I Juvenile prison Was excluded from school IYouth Offender Prison Learning Highly overcrowded prison Has no qualifications Housing Was homeless before imprisonment Stability Suffers from two or more mental disorders Sanity Suffers from psychotic disorder Health Used drugs in previous year Gender Is a male Source: Ministry of Justice National Offender Management Service data Social Exclusion Unit Report Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners. July 2002