A prison officer clocks in for their shift at HMP Manchester, keys jangling as they walk the corridors. By the end of 2023, the odds that officer would face a serious assault had nearly doubled compared to the year before.

While world leaders gather in Delhi to debate AI safety, a different kind of danger has been quietly escalating in Britain's prisons. Serious assaults on staff surged 76% in 2023, climbing from 76 incidents in 2022 to 134 last year.

That works out to more than one serious assault every three days. These aren't minor scuffles or verbal threats. The Ministry of Justice defines serious assaults as those requiring medical treatment or hospitalisation. We're talking about prison officers going home with injuries that need stitches, broken bones, or worse.

The jump is staggering. In a single year, British prisons went from averaging one serious assault on staff every five days to one every 2.7 days. For the 30,000 people working in our prison system, that represents a fundamental shift in their daily risk.

This isn't happening in isolation. Britain's prisons are under unprecedented strain. Overcrowding has pushed the system to breaking point, with some facilities running at 150% capacity. When cells designed for one person house two, and common areas become pressure cookers of frustration, violence becomes inevitable.

The human cost extends beyond the immediate victims. Every serious assault ripples through the prison workforce. Officers call in sick more often. Experienced staff leave for safer jobs. New recruits struggle to fill the gaps, creating a cycle where inexperienced officers face increasingly dangerous situations.

Consider what 134 serious assaults means in practice. That's 134 prison officers who needed medical attention after being attacked at work. 134 families who got phone calls they never wanted to receive. 134 incidents that could have been prevented with better staffing, training, or conditions.

The timing matters too. These figures cover 2023, when the cost-of-living crisis was biting hardest and social tensions were running high. Prisons don't exist in a vacuum. They reflect the pressures and frustrations of the society around them.

While politicians debate the theoretical risks of artificial intelligence, prison officers are dealing with very real, very immediate dangers every time they turn their keys. The question isn't whether AI will pose future risks to workers. It's whether we can protect the workers we're failing right now.

(Source: Ministry of Justice, Safety in Custody -- safety-in-custody-assaults-dec-23 -- 3_1_Summary_assault_statistics)