§ Mr. DawsonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what recent assessment he has made of the physical and mental health of men and women in prison who have suffered childhood abuse; [10303]
(2) what recent assessment he has made of the incidence of abuse in the childhood of men and women in prison.[10302]
§ Beverley Hughes[holding answer 29 October 2001]: We are unaware of any research that has been carried out across the whole of the prison population of England and Wales which would enable us to estimate the proportion that had been abused in childhood. Our general understanding however, from anecdotal and other evidence, is that the number of prisoners who had been abused would be significant.
The Prison Service has information about the mental health of all prisoners and about the physical health of sentenced male prisoners aged 16 years and over, from surveys conducted by the Office for National Statistics and its predecessor, OPCS. However, it is not possible to extract the information for those prisoners who may have been abused in childhood.