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UK: "Prison does not work; it kills"

01 March 1996

A report by the Howard League has confirmed the growing number of suicides in prison, particularly among young people. The report reveals that 301 prisoners committed suicide in England and Wales between 1990 and 1995; almost half of them (48%) had not been found guilty of any offence and were in jail on remand. A breakdown of the Howard League's figures shows that 56 young people - aged 21 or under - committed suicide. These include three 15-year olds and three 16-year olds. Seven women took their own lives - four of them in Holloway prison where prison inspectors walked out in disgust at the appalling squalor last December. The report also finds that "newly built prisons and commercially managed prisons have not led to safer prisons" for the vulnerable. There have been 36 suicides in new prisons and 7 in private jails, including four at Doncaster prison. Frances Crook, director of the Howard League, condemned as scandalous the "desperation and misery" that forced prisoners to commit suicide. She went on: "The Home Secretary's policies of encouraging the profligate use of penal custody is resulting in youngsters and vulnerable people dying." An additional 11 prisoners - including one who died after being on hunger strike for nearly 100 days - have killed themselves in the first few weeks of 1996. The situation is expected to deteriorate as overcrowding - already at a record high of 53,000 - escalates. Previous Home Secretaries, confronted with a crisis in overcrowding, have been forced to allow prisoners early release; the current Home Secretary, Michael Howard, has advocated new law and order proposals that are likely to increase the prison population by an estimated 20-30,000. Prison death toll grows Howard League 27.2.96.