Homicide rate is 10 times higher in prisons

Inside Time exclusive

The chances of suffering a violent death are 10 times higher in prison than in the community, an analysis of Government figures has shown.

The finding follows a series of killings of notorious prisoners in high-security jails in England, including Soham murderer Ian Huntley at HMP Frankland and Lostprophets lead singer Ian Watkins at HMP Wakefield.

Cases of prison homicide – where one prisoner kills another, whether it is found to be murder or manslaughter – have risen sharply in the past two years despite efforts by the authorities to curb violence. 

There were seven homicides in prisons in England and Wales in 2025, up from six in 2024, according to Safety in Custody Statistics published by the Ministry of Justice in January. Between 2019 and 2023 there were only one to three homicides per year. With a prison population averaging around 87,000, it means last year’s homicide rate was one in every 12,400 prisoners.

By contrast, throughout England and Wales there were 522 homicides in 2024/25, among a population of 69.5 million – meaning a homicide rate of one in every 133,000 people. The rate in prisons is just over 10 times higher than the rate in the community.

Huntley, 52, was serving a two life sentences with a minimum 40-year tariff for the murders of 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in 2002. He was attacked in a workshop at Frankland on 26 February, reportedly by another prisoner wielding a spiked metal bar. He died in hospital on 6 March after his life support was switched off. A man aged 43 has been charged with his murder.

Last year saw the killing of two notorious prisoners serving sentences for sexual offences at high-security HMP Wakefield – Watkins in October 2025 and Kyle Bevan in November 2025. Unlike most prisons, Wakefield does not have separate wings for men with sexual offence convictions.

Former prison governor Ian Acheson wrote, in an article for the Unherd current affairs website: “It is not Huntley’s squalid life on which we should be reflecting, but instead the state of supposedly high-security prisons where such extreme violence is becoming worryingly frequent.

“Frankland holds around 800 prisoners, including some of the most dangerous offenders in the country. Terrorists, serial killers and gangsters are distributed among the population, with special units set aside for the most violent inmates. Operating a safe regime in these conditions is an extraordinarily complex task.”