No well-evidenced answer to 64% rise in prison suicide

By The Press Association10th March 2015News EnglandCourts / Justice, News England, Suicide

A review of the rise in prison suicides last year suggests “some association” with overcrowding and prisoners spending less time outside their cells, the prisons complaints watchdog has said.

However, it remains “less than clear” what caused the 64% increase in self-inflicted deaths behind bars in 2013/2014, with “no simple well-evidenced answer”, Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) Nigel Newcomen has found.

Among those prisons where suicides took place were private and high-security units “largely immune” to government cutbacks, he says today in a new review. It also found that a quarter of prisoners who took their own lives spent more than five hours outside their cells per day.

Mr Newcomen said: “This review reinforces the tentative view, set out in my annual report, that there is no simple well-evidenced answer to why self-inflicted deaths increased so sharply, so quickly.

“Some commentators have argued, perfectly reasonably, that staff reductions and other strains in the prison system may have reduced protective factors against suicide. This report does suggest some association between suicides and increased prison crowding, and between suicides and less time out of cell, but the picture is less than clear.

“For example, deaths occurred in a much wider range of prisons than the year before, including private prisons and high security prisons, both of which were largely immune from the cutbacks and pressures elsewhere in the estate.”

In Learning From PPO Investigations: Self-Inflicted Deaths Of Prisoners – 2013/14, Mr Newcomen sets out a raft of improvements he says need to be made to combat the increase in suicides, saying there was an “urgent need to improve safety in custody”.

The review found there were 89 self-inflicted deaths at 53 different prisons between March 2013 and April, 56% more than the previous year, including prisons where there had not been self-inflicted deaths for many years or “sometimes ever”. Prisoners were more likely to be in their first month of custody when they took their own lives, it found.

Key areas include an ongoing “weakness” in supporting prisoners on their first night behind bars and implementing prison self-harm and suicide procedures.

Some cases reflected the “cumulative impact of disciplinary punishments, reduced privilege levels and segregation”, he said. Investigations also found evidence of bullying relating to drugs, including those that had taken “new psychoactive substances, such as spice and mamba”.

Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said the PPO report and another released today by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary into children and the mentally ill in custody “show the challenges of dealing with people who are troublesome and troubled”.

She added: “But the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts must also face up to their responsibilities, as well as the police and prisons. There has to be a whole-system approach to saving lives. The issues are complex but, in prisons, overcrowding and a lack of resources are contributory factors to increased violence, increased bullying, increased self-injury and, ultimately, people dying.”

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, added that good work on suicide and self-harm over the past decade was in danger of being undone.

She said: “The Ministry of Justice should conduct an urgent review to ensure that prisons don’t slide into pits of hopelessness and despair.”

Prisons Minister Andrew Selous said: “Every death in custody is a tragedy and that is why reducing the number of self-inflicted deaths is such a key priority. We make every effort to learn from each death and we have accepted the vast majority of the recommendations made by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman in their investigations.

“Our staff are supporting around 2,000 at-risk prisoners every single day, and recently we have provided additional resources to prisons with dedicated regional staff also supporting their safer custody work and helping to share good practice across establishments.

“Young adults are a particularly challenging and vulnerable group, and that is why we have commissioned an independent review into the deaths of 18-24-year-olds in prison custody.”