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.”