July 5, 2005: New Prison Suicide Figures

The Howard League for Penal Reform has released new figures on prison suicides over the last decade. No less than 804 men, women and children have committed suicide whilst in the care of HM Prison Service in England and Wales in the last ten years. Of the 804 suicides between 1995 and 2004 inclusive, 65 were female and 739 were male. 17 of these were children. So far this year there have been 39 suicides, including 16 last month, 13 of which occurred in the space of 14 days.

These figures have been released at a time when the prison population has reached a new record high of 76,266 (on July 1, 2005). They show that in the years 1995 to 2004:

• 55% of those who committed suicide were on remand, despite remandees only comprising 19% of the total prison population. The majority of people on remand are not convicted. Those on remand are held in notoriously overcrowded and overstretched local prisons
• Local prisons suffered from the highest rate of suicides. The fifteen prisons most affected by suicides experienced on average 21 suicides, with the highest experiencing 27.
• On average women were 30 times more likely to commit suicide in prison than in the community, with the number of women killing themselves in prison rocketing from 2 in 1995 to 13 in 2004.
• 17 children took their own lives.

Howard League Director Frances Crook commented:

“The number of prison suicides in the last 10 years is a shaming indictment of our penal system. Judges and magistrates cannot justify sending ever-increasing numbers of people into our already bulging jails when effective community sentences are readily available. With the present level of overcrowding in our prisons, people are literally condemned to an early death, despite the best efforts of over-stretched prison staff.”