The prison service has had to pay out over £400k to prison staff who have lodged claims against Aylesbury Prison since 2021.
Personal injury claims lodged by prison staff are often submitted for accidents such as slips and trips, muscle strains, or assaults by inmates while performing their duties.
The UK government launched Operation Early Dawn in August 2024, an 'early release scheme' for prisons across England and Wales, as the total prison population reached an all-time high.
On September 10, around 1,700 convicts walked out of prison in England and Wales after serving 40% of their sentence.
The increased prison population levels were often not matched by an increase in the number of prison staff, which has led to more pressure being piled on officers, such as the threat of more prisoner-on-guard assaults.
Accident Claims obtained figures on how much the cost of settling prison staff claims against Aylesbury Prison have cost since 2021.
Over the past five years, the prison has paid out a total of £406,663.81, with the highest amount coming in 2021/22 standing at £380,004.41.
The prison population has increased annually for the last thirty years, rising from 43,000 in 1994 to over 88,000 in 2024.
Despite this, the number of uniformed officers employed to care for and protect those committed by the Courts has remained almost static.
Speaking to the Byline Times, Peter Dawson of the Prison Reform Trust said: "Our prison system is failing on every front, as these numbers show.
"But unusually this is a public service which could be fixed by reducing demand rather than increasing supply.
"The political love affair with imprisonment as a symbol of toughness lies at the root of the problem, and both main parties are to blame."
According to figures gathered by the HM Prison and Probation Service, 1628 claims have been lodged against prisons across the UK in the last five years, 592 of which have been settled.
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