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February 9, 2005: Prison Suicides "A Stain On Our Democracy"
Fifty two prisons in England and Wales suffered at least one suicide of a
prisoner in 2004 and 13 prisons experienced three or more deaths, the
Howard League for Penal Reform
stated today. Prisons which experienced three or more suicides included
Blakenhurst, Gloucester, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, New Hall, Norwich,
Nottingham, Pentonville, Shrewsbury, Wakefield, Woodhill and Wormwood Scrubs.
The analysis of the annual suicide statistics carried out by the Howard League
also indicates that:
- More than half of all deaths occur in local prisons
- About 200 people are resuscitated from serious
suicide attempts each year and some of these never fully recover
- High suicide rates are associated with lower levels of
purposeful activity in prisons
- In addition to the prison suicides, a 14 year old boy took
his own life in a secure training centre
- Released prisoners are forty times more likely to die than
their peers, due to drug overdoses and suicide
- A quarter of the suicides occur within a week of arrival at
a prison and a half within the first month
- 57% of the people who commit suicide in prison are on
remand yet they represent only 19% of the prison population
- Of the people who died in prisons only 7 were identified as
at risk of suicide at the time they killed themselves
- 83 people hanged themselves, 10 suffocated or died
from a ligature and 2 from cuts to the throat or wrist
- 13 women took their own lives in 2004
- A total of 95 people committed suicide in prisons in 2004
and a fourteen year boy took his own life in a secure training centre.
Howard League Director Frances Crook said:
“The death rate in prisons continues to be a stain on
our democracy. Far too many people find prison intolerable and are dying as a
direct consequence of our love affair with punishment and incarceration. Our
society would benefit if we used prison less and got people to make amends in
the community, and we would save hundreds of lives.”
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