Sophie Riley, Head of Research, Data and Thematics at HMI Prisons, explains why we have worked with Royal Holloway to make 20 years of prisoner survey data available to other researchers.

More people are in prison than ever before in England and Wales. While there is a wealth of information about the kinds of crimes that have led to their detention, or people’s ages and ethnicities that is often where the story ends.

Not many people get to go into a prison and ask the men and women behind bars what they think and how they are feeling. We are in the privileged position of being able to gather their experiences and perspectives of their treatment and conditions in all areas of prison life.

We do this to inform and guide our inspections. The survey results help us understand what prisoners think are the main issues in their jail. This can guide inspectors as to where to dig deeper during the inspection – for example, do those being held on remand feel less safe or report less time out of their cells than sentenced prisoners? Or are prisoners from minority ethnic groups more likely to report feeling victimised by staff? The survey results are then used alongside lots of other evidence to help us make our judgements on the prison.

We’ve been doing these surveys since June 2000, leaving us with a wealth of information from over 100,000 questionnaire responses.

We publish aggregated survey data alongside every inspection, every year alongside our annual report and with many of our thematic inspection reports.

We believe that these survey data are an important way of bringing the closed worlds of prison into the open and that there is much, much more that can be done with the insights they provide. But with only a small team of researchers and limited resource ourselves, there is only so much we can do. So we have worked with Royal Holloway, using a grant they were awarded from the Economic and Social Research Council, to make this data available to other researchers.

Today over 20 years’ worth of anonymised prisoner survey data are available to researchers on the UK Data Service. Users can also apply for a more detailed Special Licence version of these data via the UK Data Service website.

What does the survey data cover?

Survey questions cover all aspects of who people are and their experiences of prison. For example, as well as basic demographic information, it also includes whether they had experience of the care system, whether they have a mental health concern, or a drug or alcohol problem.

One caveat is that, while every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, that has not always been possible. Before 2010 the questions that we asked regularly changed, because of this there may be some missing data for some prisons. This is much less of an issue the more recent the data sets.

We encourage you to use these data to enhance your research. Whether you are a student or academic keen to learn more, policy makers or those working with operational staff, we hope these data enrich your understanding of the prisoner community.

How can I access the data?

For more information, see our website Research section, or the survey data User Guide on the UK Data Service. And to share observations or ask questions, please contact us at:

ukda_requests@hmiprisons.gov.uk.

We look forward to you sharing your findings with us as we work together to improve outcomes for prisoners and ultimately make society safer for us all.