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UK: Prison suicides reach two a week

01 July 2007

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Suicides in jails in England and Wales have risen to two a week - with 50 deaths so far in 2007, compared with 67 in the whole of 2006. Anne Owers, Chief Inspector of Prisons, told the Constitutional Affairs Committee that the rise in prison suicides was linked directly with the overcrowding crisis. More than 400 prisoners had been held in police cells and 120 in crown and magistrates court cells prior to the introduction of the early?release programme. Owers told the committee that holding prisoners in police and court cells increased their vulnerability and that the surge in prison numbers had undermined the successes of support services for new inmates. The prison population hit a record 81,040 in July 2007, before the early release scheme reduced the prison population by 1,500. By this stage the price had already been paid by 50 vulnerable prisoners.

Ms Owers said the government should use the breathing space offered by the early?release scheme to "get a system which gets people in prison who need to be in prison, but provides the kind of support after prison, before prison and instead of prison that means we are not just revolving people through the system."

Press Association 12.7.07; The Guardian 13.6.07

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