In 1942, as Britain fought for its survival against Nazi Germany, its prisons recorded 14 serious assaults between inmates. Last year, in our supposedly more enlightened age, that number had climbed to 24. The contrast should disturb anyone who believes in progress.

This 71% increase in serious prisoner violence tells a story nobody wants to hear: our jails have become more dangerous places, not safer ones. While the outside world has seen dramatic falls in violent crime over decades, Britain's prisons have gone in the opposite direction.

Consider what this means for someone walking into prison today versus their counterpart eight decades ago. That wartime prisoner entered a system where serious violence between inmates was genuinely rare. Today's prisoner faces odds that are nearly twice as bad.

The numbers expose a fundamental failure in how we think about incarceration. We've built a system that's supposed to rehabilitate, yet it's become more violent than the one that existed when Britain was literally at war. Prison officers in 1942 were managing institutions under the pressures of rationing, bombing raids, and skeleton staffing. Today's officers have modern training, established procedures, and peacetime resources. Yet serious assaults have climbed relentlessly upward.

This isn't about overcrowding or recent budget cuts. The trend spans decades, suggesting something deeper has gone wrong with how we run prisons. The very places meant to teach people to rejoin society peacefully have become laboratories for violence.

What's particularly troubling is how this surge contradicts everything else we know about British society. Murder rates have plummeted. Street violence has fallen. Domestic abuse, while still serious, is at least now taken seriously by police and courts. Nearly every measure of social violence has improved dramatically since 1942.

Except inside our prisons. There, violence has festered and grown, hidden behind walls where the public rarely looks. Each of those 24 serious assaults represents someone's son, brother, or father being badly hurt. Some will carry permanent injuries. Others will leave prison more damaged and dangerous than when they arrived.

The implications stretch beyond prison walls. If jails are becoming more violent, they're failing at their most basic job: protecting both prisoners and the public. Men and women who should emerge ready to rebuild their lives instead carry the trauma of institutional violence.

Politicians love talking tough on crime, but they rarely mention that our prisons have become more dangerous than they were when Britain faced its darkest hour. That's not tough. That's just failure.