DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-9068-2
title: HMIP Prisoner Survey: Adults in England and Wales, 2000-2023: Special Licence Access
title: HMIP Prisoner Surveys, Adults in England and Wales, 2000-

description: &lt;p&gt;The HMIP (His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons) Prisoner Surveys (also formerly known as Detainee Surveys) are part of the Inspectorate's duties to inspect prisons. Surveys of prisoners have been carried out systematically since 2000 at institutions being inspected, to gain important insight into detainees' experiences of offender management whilst in custody.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Prisoners are issued with the survey questionnaire to return to the HMIP team, which processes the data to inform inspections of individual institutions and the HMIP annual reports.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The survey is grouped into topics/themes of questions with response categories, as well as providing space for prisoners to add additional comments (such text comments are not included in these datasets).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The specific objectives of the HMIP Prisoner Survey series are as follows:&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;to produce data that are comparable as possible over time and between custodial institutions;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;to provide data for a large and representative sample of adult prisoners in England and Wales. So far, over 20 years' worth of data has been collected. The survey conducted in 2020/21 was subject to HMIP &lt;a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/about-hmi-prisons/covid-19/"&gt;COVID-19 restrictions&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;Further information can be found on the HMIP &lt;a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/about-our-inspections/research/detainee-survey/"&gt;Prisoner Survey&lt;/a&gt; webpage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;End User Licence and Special Licence versions&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two versions of the HMIP Prisoner Survey are held at UKDS: an End User Licence (EUL) version (SN 9161) that is subject to registration and standard access conditions, and a more detailed Special Licence (SL) version (SN 9068), which has additional access restrictions. The document 'end_user_licence_group_changes', available with the EUL version, SN 9161, details the differences between the two versions. Users should obtain the EUL version first to see whether it is suitable for their needs before considering making an application for access to the SL version.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;Latest edition information&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the second edition (October 2023), data for 2020/21 and 2022/23 were added to the study. Other changes include a minor modification in how the datasets are organised. They are now categorised not only by publication year but also by questionnaire version. In some years, there was a separation in terms of gender (men and women) and prison type (open and closed prisons) when there was a survey difference. These changes are structural, allowing for more specific data segmentation. Additionally, a few corrections in the data entries have been made.&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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