Debate contribution: Prison Officers: Attacks
Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on .
- MLA
- Mrs Naomi Long
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 3 February 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Prison Officers: Attacks
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4774308
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Our prisons are incredibly safe places, compared with other similar prisons. If you look at recent reviews of the prisons estate by CJINI, for example, you will see that levels of violence are lower than in comparable establishments elsewhere. However, as the Member, rightly, says, any attack on a prison officer is unacceptable, so the first thing is to make clear to every prisoner that when their behaviour is unacceptable, or when they resort to violence or abuse, it will, first, be dealt with through prison rules and have an impact on their regime and privileges. Potentially, it will also be escalated to a police investigation, where that is possible, because it is important that we hold people to account if they abuse a prison officer or, for that matter, a police officer doing their job. One of the things that I hope to do in the sentencing Bill, which I hope to introduce at the end of the year, is to introduce an aggravator for those who attack someone who works in the public service or delivers a service to the public. I hope that the aggravator will act as an added deterrent. Prison officers are trained in de-escalation techniques, restraint and the use of protective measures so that they are able to keep themselves, their colleagues and other prisoners safe. We intend no significant changes in that regime, because, to date, it has been reasonably successful and without serious incident.
242 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.04 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.89).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.99).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.89 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.04 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.99 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.01 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.99 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:53 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
Disagree with this assessment?
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