Prison suicides in England and Wales 'reach record levels'

 

LONDON: -- A record number of inmates have taken their own lives in prisons in England and Wales so far this year, a prison reform charity has said.

 

The Howard League for Penal Reform said it had been notified of 102 suicides so far this year, the highest since its records began in 1978.

 

The charity said suicides in prisons had reached "epidemic proportions".

 

The government has pledged 2,500 extra officers and special measures for vulnerable or mentally ill inmates.

 

Full story: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38126646

 

-- © Copyright BBC 2016-11-28

 

No surprises there. Very over crowded and also the fact that since the early 1990s, lots of prisoners with mental health problems, are just 'banged up' with no real treatment and the rise in suicides is expected.

There could be many factors involved.

 

Prison conditions are far worse in other countries are suicide rates are lower so the knee-jerk reaction to prison conditions being the cause may not be valid.

 

One could point to the highly individualistic nature of society in the UK now. The role of family has been usurped by the state. The unintended consequence is a breakdown in society and support networks.

 

One could point to the welfare state. Most sink estate residents now have all the latest smartphones, wide screen tv's, cars, etc. All without having to do a day's work or study. Life is gifted to them and reality may be too much.

 

One could point to the wide range of drugs, legal and illegal available in UK society. Drugs, depression and psychosis go hand in hand.

 

One needs to look at a far bigger picture.

1 hour ago, Briggsy said:

There could be many factors involved.

 

Prison conditions are far worse in other countries are suicide rates are lower so the knee-jerk reaction to prison conditions being the cause may not be valid.

 

One could point to the highly individualistic nature of society in the UK now. The role of family has been usurped by the state. The unintended consequence is a breakdown in society and support networks.

 

One could point to the welfare state. Most sink estate residents now have all the latest smartphones, wide screen tv's, cars, etc. All without having to do a day's work or study. Life is gifted to them and reality may be too much.

 

One could point to the wide range of drugs, legal and illegal available in UK society. Drugs, depression and psychosis go hand in hand.

 

One needs to look at a far bigger picture.

 

But none of the things you suggest would fit with the sudden spike in numbers, all those things have been present for a long time, perhaps increasing, but certainly not a rate to coincide with this years sudden increase in suicides.  I would be more inclined to look at what has been going on recently within the prison system than what is going on outside, which is a 24% budget cut including a 10% cut for prisoner food despite large rises in food costs, 65% of prisons now overcrowded and there are 30% less prison staff than a few years ago.  The stats from within the prison show a 20% increase of self harm, a doubling of incidents involving prisoners climbing and seeking to be put on suicide watch and the statistic we already know, the highest number of suicides since records began.  No knee jerk reactions, just the basic presumption that increasingly worse conditions is increasing suicide of prisoners.  We should take a leaf out of the book of the most successful prison system in the world, which is Norway's, where they treat prisoners with respect and they rarely come back, instead we treat them like animals and about half of them come back.

No, the suicides are a reflection of the lowering standards, lower standards are proven to bring higher re-offending rates, which of course means more taxes wasted in the future when we could have just rehabilitated them in the first place instead of this archaic notion of punishing every prisoner equally whatever the nature of their crime may be.

10 minutes ago, Shawn0000 said:

But none of the things you suggest would fit with the sudden spike in numbers,

 

http://howardleague.org/news/suicidesinprison2016/

 

What sudden spike ?

 

Read the table at the link.

 

13 additional suicides out of a population of 86,000 is hardly a spike.

 

Many of the prisons in the table in the link have reduced suicide levels, funny how nothing is said about that.

 

2 charities looking for additional funding perhaps ?

7 minutes ago, SgtRock said:

 

http://howardleague.org/news/suicidesinprison2016/

 

What sudden spike ?

 

Read the table at the link.

 

13 additional suicides out of a population of 86,000 is hardly a spike.

 

Many of the prisons in the table in the link have reduced suicide levels, funny how nothing is said about that.

 

2 charities looking for additional funding perhaps ?

 

The sudden spike is a 10% increase on previous recent years.  The total number of prisoners is not what we are looking at, we are not discussing the percentage of prisoners who commit suicide, which is insignificantly changed, we are looking at real numbers of suicides, which have significantly increased.  And if some prisons have reduced in numbers that makes it all the worse as that means some have increased so much as to be able to skew the entire systems stats.

 

And what 2 charities?  The Howard League is only one and is always has been funded by private donations.

2 minutes ago, Shawn0000 said:

 

The sudden spike is a 10% increase on previous recent years.  The total number of prisoners is not what we are looking at, we are not discussing the percentage of prisoners who commit suicide, which is insignificantly changed, we are looking at real numbers of suicides, which have significantly increased.  And if some prisons have reduced in numbers that makes it all the worse as that means some have increased so much as to be able to skew the entire systems stats.

 

And what 2 charities?  The Howard League is only one and is always has been funded by private donations.

 

Well done.

 

% increase is always used to make things look worse or better depending on your perspective.

 

No-one is saying that the prison system is perfect, but to use your method 0.11% is probably not going to read much different to the General population

 

These 2 charities from the OP

 

Quote

The Howard League released the figures on suicide as it published a joint report alongside Centre for Mental Health, another charity.

 

Does being funded by private donations debar you from seeking further funding ?

1 minute ago, SgtRock said:

 

Well done.

 

% increase is always used to make things look worse or better depending on your perspective.

 

No-one is saying that the prison system is perfect, but to use your method 0.11% is probably not going to read much different to the General population

 

These 2 charities from the OP

 

 

Does being funded by private donations debar you from seeking further funding ?

 

I don't suppose it does, but I think it more likely that they hope to encourage the government to stop decreasing the prison budget.  And the issue is not just that the system is imperfect, it is that it is rapidly deteriorating. And it is not only about the prisoners, if they allow it to get much worse they will not be able to find any staff, a large percentage are considering leaving just as many of their colleagues already have done as it is getting more and more dangerous.

Some troll posts and replies have been removed

33 minutes ago, SgtRock said:

 

Well done.

 

% increase is always used to make things look worse or better depending on your perspective.

 

No-one is saying that the prison system is perfect, but to use your method 0.11% is probably not going to read much different to the General population

 

These 2 charities from the OP

 

 

Does being funded by private donations debar you from seeking further funding ?

 

The UK has a suicide rate of 6.2 per 100,000 people or 0.006% - prison suicide far outweighs the UK average.

1 hour ago, RuamRudy said:

 

The UK has a suicide rate of 6.2 per 100,000 people or 0.006% - prison suicide far outweighs the UK average.

 

What is it for England and Wales as per the OP ?

 

Bearing in mind that NI has the highest rate of suicide in the UK.

1 hour ago, RuamRudy said:

 

The UK has a suicide rate of 6.2 per 100,000 people or 0.006% - prison suicide far outweighs the UK average.

Feelings of guilt are extremely highly correlated to suicides (except end of life decisions).

 

Why might people in prison feel guilty, I wonder?

10 minutes ago, SgtRock said:

 

What is it for England and Wales as per the OP ?

 

Bearing in mind that NI has the highest rate of suicide in the UK.

 

No idea, but if NI is abnormally high as you state, we can assume that the England/Wales rate will be less than 0.006%.

3 minutes ago, RuamRudy said:

 

No idea, but if NI is abnormally high as you state, we can assume that the England/Wales rate will be less than 0.006%.

 

Exactly 

 

You have no idea. If you knew anything, you would know that the suicide rate in the General population is accepted as being unknown because too many cannot be determined and therefore not classified as suicide. 

2 minutes ago, SgtRock said:

 

Exactly 

 

You have no idea. If you knew anything, you would know that the suicide rate in the General population is accepted as being unknown because too many cannot be determined and therefore not classified as suicide. 

 

Well the World Health Organization feel sufficiently confident to offer detailed analysis and, to be honest, I think they are much more likely to know what they are talking about that you, so I will stick with their info.

 

There really should be categories. 

Assisted by prisoner suicide .

Assisted by guard suicide. 

Suicide as a direct result of rape.  

Mental health with no care suicide. 

normal run of the mill suicide. 

 

I also wonder how many are in there simply because they chose by their own free will to use drugs. 

Or even worse, in prison for smoking a joint. 

Shocking 

 

Why not encourage inmate suicide, even offer a severance-benefit to next of kin. Should cost less than keeping them incarcerated.

2 hours ago, Briggsy said:

Feelings of guilt are extremely highly correlated to suicides (except end of life decisions).

 

Why might people in prison feel guilty, I wonder?

 

What suicides are not end of life decisions?

17 minutes ago, smotherb said:

Why not encourage inmate suicide, even offer a severance-benefit to next of kin. Should cost less than keeping them incarcerated.

 

Why stop at inmates, why not encourage disabled people to kill themselves, speaking of those with disabilities, why don't you go kill yourself?

18 minutes ago, smotherb said:

Why not encourage inmate suicide,

 

Because, as a people, we aspire to be better than that?

Just now, Shawn0000 said:

 

Why stop at inmates, why not encourage disabled people to kill themselves, speaking of those with disabilities, why don't you go kill yourself?

Testy, Testy.  Why not refrain from committing crimes.

Just now, RuamRudy said:

 

Because, as a people, we aspire to be better than that?

One may dispute that.

8 minutes ago, smotherb said:

Testy, Testy.  Why not refrain from committing crimes.

 

You were just suggesting other people commit a very serious crime.

2 hours ago, RuamRudy said:

 

Well the World Health Organization feel sufficiently confident to offer detailed analysis and, to be honest, I think they are much more likely to know what they are talking about that you, so I will stick with their info.

 

 

If the UK cannot offer a detailed analyses, what makes you think the WHO can ?

 

Pretty good that you can now quote some WHO in depth analyses but had no idea that NI had the highest suicide rates in the UK.

 

Must be a fantastic report.

 

10 minutes ago, smotherb said:

One may dispute that.

 

Do you often refer to yourself as one?

5 minutes ago, Shawn0000 said:

 

You were just suggesting other people commit a very serious crime.

Suicide is a crime; hmm what is the punishment?

 

57 minutes ago, greenchair said:

There really should be categories. 

Assisted by prisoner suicide .

Assisted by guard suicide. 

Suicide as a direct result of rape.  

Mental health with no care suicide. 

normal run of the mill suicide. 

 

I also wonder how many are in there simply because they chose by their own free will to use drugs. 

Or even worse, in prison for smoking a joint. 

Shocking 

 

 

 A few more that could prove telling:

Pleaded innocent and always maintained innocence suicide.

On remand and found innocent posthumously suicide.

Previous "height incident" that was deemed to be an attempt to gain privileges through moving to secure wing and thus denied suicide watch suicide.

 

 

4 minutes ago, smotherb said:

Suicide is a crime; hmm what is the punishment?

 

 

Encouraging people to commit suicide is a crime, you know, the thing you suggested...

1 hour ago, Shawn0000 said:

 

Encouraging people to commit suicide is a crime, you know, the thing you suggested...

I asked the rhetorical question, Why not encourage suicide . . . ? Good luck convicting someone of committing a crime for that; especially if they, like me, has no control over Brit prisons.