UK: Jail overcrowding blamed for rise in suicides
01 January 2008
The prison overcrowding crisis has been blamed for a rise of nearly 40 per cent in the number of prisoners killing themselves.
Prison reformers expressed outrage after figures released by the Ministry of Justice showed that 93 prisoners killed themselves in jail last year, up from 67 in 2006. The figures include seven inmates under 21 and one boy of 15 who killed himself while serving a sentence of 45 days for breaching a supervision order. The ministry also said more than 100 prisoners were resuscitated after "serious self-harm incidents".
Seven women were among those who killed themselves in prison, up from just three in 2006. Overall, remand prisoners made up 41 of the deaths, while 18 lifers killed themselves along with four on indeterminate sentences.
Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "A leap of 37 per cent in the annual prison suicide rate is the human cost of the prisons crisis. The prison service has taken great strides in suicide prevention in recent years but it is all for naught when the system is on its knees with record overcrowding. Staff and resources are strained to the limit coping with an ever-swelling prison population rife with mental health problems, drug and alcohol addiction and histories of neglect and abuse. She added:
Prison is where we seek to sweep away social problems, blithely unaware of the fact that we are simply compounding the problems we seek to avoid. Little or nothing is done to tackle the underlying causes of crime in custody. While prisoners are inside, their families struggle to cope without fathers and mothers. For those individuals who survive a prison sentence, two thirds will be reconvicted within two years of release and most likely for more serious offences than before.
The campaigning group Black Mental Health UK has condemned the rapid rise in the number of suicides in prison over the past 12 months, and is seeking the backing of community and faith groups in its call for urgent government action.
The latest official statistics indicate that black prisoners are currently passing through the prison system at a rate five times higher than that of white prisoners. "Clearly there are concerns about this and we need to have an ethnic breakdown of exactly who has died in prison in the last 12 months in order to establish current trends," Lord Herman Ouseley, former head of the Commission For Racial Equality (now part of the Commission on Equality and Human Rights) said. He continued:
One suicide is one to many and we have seen figures on the over representation of ethnic minorities within prison settings but have not been given any answers as to why this is not being addressed.
Black Mental Health UK has welcomed Prisons Minister Maria Eagle's call for an inquiry into the reasons behind the increase in deaths and to look into measures to improve security for those suffering from mental health problems:
An inquiry is welcomed and urgently needed. We must ensure that there is appropriate and equal representation of all stakeholders, especially from the communities most adversely effected by this problem, declared BMH UK director Matilda MacAttram.
The Prisons Inspectorate has also warned that too many mentally ill offenders are jailed rather than given the specialist help that they need. The influx has continued despite overcrowding problems in jails and repeated calls from successive Home Secretaries for fewer sufferers from mental illness to be locked up.
Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, said that jail had become the "default setting" for many people who posed little risk to the public. She said the quality of treatment inside jail had declined over the past five years, with sufferers encountering a series of problems. They included inadequate screening on arrival and poor communication between the health professionals charged with their care. Offenders who have problems with