Seventy-four assaults take place every day in jails across England and Wales, new figures laying bare the lack of order in the prison estate have shown.
With prisons stretched to maximum capacity and staff struggling to cope, there were 26,912 assault incidents in English and Welsh prisons in 2023.
Of these, 3,205 were deemed to be serious assaults, an average of eight every day, the figures showed.
Almost 10,000 of the assaults were inflicted on staff, with 825 of these being classed as serious. The figures, revealed in House of Commons Library research, showed a significant increase in assaults compared with previous years.
In 2022, there were 21,015 total assaults, meaning there was a 28 per cent jump year on year.
The research, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, also revealed the country’s most violent prisons.
The beleaguered HMP Wandsworth, where former soldier Daniel Khalife escaped from last year, and where former prison officer Linda De Sousa Abreu was filmed having sex with an inmate, saw by far the most assaults of any prison, recording 1,044 total assaults. More than half of these, 571, were on staff.
HMP Berwyn in Wales has the next highest assaults with 783 and then Thameside with 667.
The Independent has repeatedly highlighted the crisis facing prisons due to the combination of staff shortages and overcrowding.
Earlier this year, this paper reported that the number of prison officers trained to deal with riots as part of so-called Tornado squads has plummeted by a third, with experts warning the decline would lead to more violence and disorder in prisons.
The Independent also revealed an exodus of the most experienced prison officers, leading to fears jails were vulnerable to increased violence and even being overrun by gangs.
Since coming to power, Labour has released thousands of inmates early in a bid to free up space and restore order to the prison estate. Prisons minister James Timpson said Britain faced the “total breakdown of law and order” without the scheme, with the system “teetering on the edge of disaster” after being “run at 99 per cent capacity for months”.
The Liberal Democrats used the fresh research to repeat calls for an urgent plan to recruit and retain more prison officers, and tackle the criminal courts backlog to reduce the number of people on remand.
Lib Dem justice spokesman Josh Babarinde said: “The Conservatives have left our prisons in utter chaos.
“With this staggering number of assaults and rates of re-offending through the roof, the Conservatives have left a system that is failing prison staff, failing victims, and failing our communities.
“Their neglect of our justice system is unforgivable, and their former Ministers should hang their heads in shame for this shambolic legacy.
“This is a crisis that needs to be gripped by the new government with the utmost urgency. It is no wonder that hard-working prison officers are leaving in their droves when many drive to work fearing they may leave in the back of an ambulance.
“The new government must come forward with an urgent plan to make our prisons safer. They must recruit and retain more prison officers, tackle the criminal courts backlog, and invest properly in rehabilitation to reduce re-offending.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The new government inherited prisons on the point of collapse with no choice but to introduce an emergency early release scheme.
“To keep the public safe, we excluded serious violent and sexual offenders as well as a series of offences linked to domestic abuse. Offenders left prison under strict licence conditions, subject to recall if they are broken.
“We must now ensure no Government inherits a situation like this. That means building new prisons and conducting a sentencing review to ensure we never run out of space again.”