Assaults on prison officers have reached a new high and reoffending rates have increased, figures showed yesterday (file image)

The huge numbers being sent back to jail is expected to pose a serious problem for Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood (left, pictured with Governor Sarah Bott, during a visit to HMP Bedford in Harpur, Bedfordshire)

The authorities recalled 9,782 inmates to jail between April and June, a 44 per cent increase on the same period last year. Prisoners are recalled if they commit new crimes or breach the terms of their release.

The huge numbers being sent back to jail is expected to pose a serious problem for Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood.

She is freeing thousands of inmates – including some violent offenders – after they serve 40 per cent of their sentence to free up space in overcrowded jails.

But higher numbers of offenders being sent back means the policy could create less space than expected.

Meanwhile, the MoJ figures – covering England and Wales – showed there are 2,605 criminals on the run after be ing recalled to prison.

The figure, covering offenders who have absconded between 1984 and June this year, was up 318 in a year, and up from about 1,000 ten years ago.

Of the total, 362 had originally been serving a prison sentence for violent crimes and 74 were sex offenders. Some of those categorised as on the run may be dead or abroad.

The number of offenders being monitored in the community by so-called Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (Mappa) was 93,436 at the end of March.

The number of Mappa offenders who were charged with serious further offences was 216 – up by a third year-on-year and the highest since 2017/18.

Self-harm by prisoners rose 13 per cent to a new peak of 76,000 incidents in the year to June, while there were 88 self-inflicted deaths in custody in the year to September, down four per cent.

The MoJ said there were a record 10,281 assaults on jail staff, up 30 per cent on the previous 12 months. Some 974 of these were serious assaults, a 24 per cent jump

A spokesman for the Prison Governors’ Association said: ‘These levels of violence are indicative of the current crisis in our prisons and clearly show the scale of the crisis prior to the last election.

‘Prisons must be safe places to live and work if they are to serve their primary purposes to punish offenders, protect the public and to be places of rehabilitation.

‘We are failing in this respect and without focus and investment from Government will continue to do so.’

Prisons minister Lord Timpson said: ‘These statistics yet again illustrate the scale of the prison crisis this Government inherited and how prisons are failing their basic function to cut crime.

‘Attacks on our hardworking staff have reached endemic levels and the rate of self-harm has peaked at a depressing high – both indications of the system’s failure to rehabilitate.

‘This new Government has already taken urgent action to save the prison system from the point of collapse and we will now make the reforms necessary so that prisons are safer and make better citizens, not better criminals.’