Potential merits of mandatory body armour for prison officers

This debate follows public attention to high-profile assaults by prisoners on prison officers in 2025 and calls for prison officers to be provided with stab proof vests. In 2025, the government made protective armour mandatory for prison officers in some environments, and it later announced funding to provide more equipment for up to 10,000 prison officers.

Data on attacks on prison staff

There were 10,326 assaults on staff by prisoners in the 12 months to September 2025. This was a 1.6% decrease from the previous 12 months.

931 of the 10,326 assaults on staff by prisoners in the 12 months to September 2025 were classed as a ‘serious assault’. This was a 3.8% decrease from the previous 12 months. For the last decade, the rate of serious assaults on staff by prisoners has remained consistent at roughly 10 serious assaults per 1,000 prisoners.

There were 22,737 full-time equivalent (FTE) band 3 to 5 prison officers in post in March 2025. This is a decrease of 878 FTE (3.7%) since 31 March 2024. There was an overall leaving rate of 12.2% among band 3 to 5 prison officers for the 12 months ending 31 March 2025.

Some recent serious assaults on prison officers have attracted public attention, including:

• three officers at HMP Frankland suffering life-threatening injuries having been stabbed and had hot cooking oil thrown over them by Hashem Abedi, one of the men responsible for the Manchester Arena bombing,
• a prisoner who tried to kill five prison officers at HMP Swaleside and HMP Belmarsh with improvised weapons, including a sharpened plastic spoon,
• a prison officer at HMP Peterborough suffering “permanent damage” having had a “bin full of hot sugared water” thrown over them by a prisoner, and
• two officers at HMP Isle of Wight being hospitalised having been stabbed by a prisoner with an improvised weapon.

The chair of the Prison Officers Association (POA), Mark Fairhurst, has said that prison officers are “dealing with more prolific, violent and serious threats to our safety” and that his “greatest fear is [...] that one of my colleagues will be murdered on duty.”

Similarly, a former prisoner officer has told the BBC that “prison officers feel like they’re dicing with death every day”.

Calls for body armour for prison officers

The POA said it has been calling for the introduction of stab proof vests “for several years” but that its previous requests had “been consistently denied”. It said it has previously been told that stab proof vests “look too militaristic and might intimidate prisoners”.

Following the attack on prison officers by Hashem Abedi, the POA renewed their calls for the government to issue prison officers with stab proof vests as well as calling for the introduction of tasers in high-security prisons.

Mr Fairhurst said prison officers’ lives “are on the line” and urged the government to “stop dithering and delaying […] and just get it done before one of my members is murdered on duty”.

Body armour made mandatory for prison officers in some centres

In April 2025, following the attack on prison officers by Hashem Abedi, HM Prison & Probation Service conducted a review into whether protective body armour should be rolled out to prison staff.

The review involved “extensive engagement with frontline staff, trade unions and uniformed services like the police who already use protective body armour.”

In June 2025, the then Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Shabana Mahmood, announced that “new protective vests will be made mandatory for prison officers working in Close Supervision Centres and Separation Centres which hold the most dangerous offenders in the estate”.

She said protective vests would also be available for “officers working with prisoners held in segregation units within the high-security estate”.

The Ministry of Justice said “more evidence is needed before rolling out vests to all prison officers” and pointed to staff concerns that body armour may be “too heavy and restrictive for everyday use”.

The POA welcomed the announcement but said the government needed to go further to help prison officers maintain order in prisons:

We welcome the announcement that officers in close supervision centres, separation centres and segregation units in the Long Term High Security Estate would be provided with body armour. However, with violence in our Prisons, and an average of around 28 assaults on staff every day across the system, this must be treated as a first step towards a properly resourced Prison Service.

But in order to support our members in maintaining order in increasingly overcrowded Prisons, the Government must follow this announcement with action to tackle lower rates of pay than other uniformed services and a full retirement age of 68, which is much higher than the likes of the Police.

Body armour made available for 10,000 prison staff

In September 2025, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, David Lammy, announced that the government was increasing the number of stab proof vests available to prison officers from 750 to 10,000.

He said the government was investing £15 million in this “major intervention” to “better protect [prison staff] from violence”, and that 5,000 of the stab proof vests would be used to “equip every officer working in long term and high-security prisons”.

Mr Lammy also announced that 500 prison officers would be trained on how to use tasers to “incapacitate an attacker instantly”, to further protect staff and other prisoners.

Mr Lammy stated:

I am determined to restore tough law and order, ensure prisons are fit for purpose, and make our streets safer, as part of the Plan for Change.

Our dedicated prison officers put themselves in harm’s way every day to protect us. This new investment sends a clear message: we back our staff and we will give them the tools they need to do their jobs safely.

During a visit to HMP Belmarsh, a prison officer told Mr Lammy that stab proof vests will “deter and hopefully reduce violence”.

The general secretary of the POA, Steve Gillan, said that the POA has “campaigned vociferously for the introduction of protective equipment such as stab vests, PAVA spray and tasers” and that he was “very pleased” with the government’s announcement. Mr Gillan added that “we must return security, order and discipline to our jails”.

The chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust, Pia Sinha, stated that “tasers and stab proof vests may help staff feel safer […] but we must not confuse these reactive measures with a strategy to reduce violence at its source”:

The real drivers of prison violence—unsafe conditions, lack of purposeful activity, and poor mental health—can only be addressed through improved safety, decency, and respect. That means better staff training, supporting leadership development, and the political will to invest in prison conditions and reduce demand for drugs. These long-term reforms must be given equal priority if this government is serious about making prisons safer for everyone who lives and works in them.

Additional government action to improve safety in prisons

In March 2026, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Jake Richards, provided an update on the measures the government is taking to improve safety in prisons, including to reduce overcrowding:

The safety and decency of our prisons is paramount. We continually monitor prison conditions and take places on and offline depending on safety, stability, staffing levels and maintenance needs.

We recognise that overcrowding can make it harder for prisons to deliver safe, stable and rehabilitative regimes and we will not take decisions that create unacceptable risks to prison safety.

That is why we are increasing capacity at record rates, and our Sentencing Act will place the prison population on a more sustainable footing, paving the way for further reform of our prison systems so we can create better conditions and outcomes for our prisoners.

We are also improving access to rehabilitative services and purposeful activity and are increasing staff capability to support improved rehabilitation outcomes. We are strengthening safety and security by investing around £15 million in protective equipment.

Other measures introduced by the government to try and improve safety and tackle violence in prisons include:

• investing £40 million in new security measures “to clamp down on the contraband that fuels violence behind bars”, including £10 million on anti-drone measures such as exterior netting and reinforced windows and upgrades to CCTV, control rooms, biometric devices and floodlights
• accepting all 13 recommendations from Jonathan Hall KC’s Independent Review of Separation Centres to “strengthen safety, sharpen accountability and modernise how Separation Centres operate”
• introducing the Enable Programme to “transform how HMPPS trains, develops, leads, and supports” the prison service’s “relatively inexperienced workforce”
• using AI to predict and tackle prisoner violence

Further Commons Library reading

Prison population statistics, 6 February 2026

Sentencing Bill, 27 October 2025

Estimates day: The spending of the Ministry of Justice, 20 June 2025