What happens when the places designed to keep society safe become more dangerous than the streets outside? While Bill Gates debates AI safety in Delhi, a different kind of crisis is unfolding behind bars in Britain.

Serious prisoner-on-prisoner assaults in English and Welsh prisons surged to 84 incidents in 2023, more than double the 41 recorded the previous year. That's a 105% increase in just twelve months. (Source: Ministry of Justice, Safety in Custody -- safety-in-custody-assaults-dec-23 -- 3_1_Summary_assault_statistics)

These aren't minor scuffles. We're talking about assaults serious enough to require hospital treatment, cause permanent disability, or threaten life. The kind that leave lasting physical and psychological scars.

The timing couldn't be worse. Britain's prisons are already operating at breaking point, with overcrowding forcing the early release of thousands of inmates. When you pack more people into spaces that were already stretched thin, violence becomes inevitable.

Think about your own workplace. Now imagine if serious assaults there doubled in a year. There'd be investigations, resignations, fundamental changes to how things operate. Yet in prisons, this explosion of violence barely registers as news.

These numbers represent real people. Prison officers trying to maintain order with insufficient resources. Inmates living in fear, where a trip to the showers or the exercise yard could end in hospital. Families visiting loved ones, wondering if they'll come home in one piece.

The doubling of serious assaults suggests something systemic has broken down. When prisoners can't be kept safe from each other, the entire purpose of incarceration comes into question. Rehabilitation becomes impossible when survival is the daily priority.

What's particularly troubling is how quietly this crisis has unfolded. Politicians debate the theoretical dangers of artificial intelligence while ignoring the very real violence happening in institutions they're responsible for running.

Prison violence isn't just a problem for those inside. Inmates who experience or witness serious assaults return to communities more traumatised, more likely to reoffend. The violence doesn't stay behind bars.

The question isn't whether Britain's prisons are safe anymore. The data answers that definitively. The question is what we're going to do about institutions that have become more dangerous than the streets they're meant to protect us from.