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Parliamentary Questions


Question On Notice No. 6352 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 11 August 2020 by Mr S.K. L'estrange

Question Directed to the: Minister for Emergency Services; Corrective Services
Parliament: 40 Session: 1


Question

(1) What were the prisoner on prisoner assault and serious assault rates for 2019-20?
(2) How many prisoner on prisoner assaults and serious assaults occurred in WA prisons in 2019-20?
(3) What were the prisoner on officer assault and serious assault rates for 2019-20?
(4) How many assaults and serious assaults on prison staff occurred in WA prisons in 2019-20?

Answered on 15 September 2020

(1) The prisoner on prisoner assault rate was 8.35 per 100 prisoners and the serious assault rate was 1.09 per 100 prisoners for 2019-20.

(2) There were 581 prisoner on prisoner assaults and 76 prisoner on prisoner serious assaults occurred in WA adult prisons during 2019-20.

(3) The prisoner on officer assault rate was 1.38 per 100 prisoners and the serious assault rate was 0.22 per 100 prisoners for 2019- 20.

(4) There were 96 assaults against officers and 15 serious assaults against officers in WA adult prisons during 2019-20.

Please note: During 2018 the Department of Justice (the Department) conducted its own internal audit of KPI data in relation to the “rate of serious assaults per 100 prisoners”, which estimated the under-reporting of serious assaults to be at approximately 27 per cent.  This led to the Department taking a number of steps to tighten its reporting standards, enhance the software used to record incidents, and strengthen quality assurance processes around incident reporting and recording.  As a result, the way data is entered for assault statistics was updated during the early part of 2018-19 and therefore recent data is not comparable to preceding years with the exception of serious assaults data.