Pubdate: Tue, 10 Dec 2002
Source: Independent  (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209
Author: Ian Burrell
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

THE HARSH TOLL THAT LIFE INSIDE TAKES ON THE VULNERABLE

They have tried offering them painting and drama therapy. They have
tried giving them comfortable rooms with a television and armchairs.
And they have even been treated to a soothing music and light show.

But still, every few days or so, somewhere inside the overcrowded and
intensely monitored environment that is the prison system, someone
will manage to find enough time and space to take their own life.

Some do it in a fit of remorse because they have just killed or
seriously injured the one they most love and cannot comprehend what
they have done. Some, like the serial killer Fred West, know precisely
what they have done and the fate that awaits them; they choose death
rather than spending the rest of their lives in a maximum-security
prison.

But mostly they do it because they are the young, vulnerable and
distressed, and plunged into a claustrophobic hierarchy of bullying
and favours, "old lags'', "nonces" and prison officers barking orders
from which there is no relief other than the ripped sheet around the
cell bars. Frances Crook, of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said:
"We are literally sending our children into prison to die."

For many years, the prison service has been trying, and largely
failing, to reduce the numbers of inmates who commit suicide. Various
therapies to ease distressed people have included putting them in
rooms filled with soothing music where kaleidoscopic colours are
projected onto walls and bounced off a disco-style glitter ball
hanging from the ceiling.

Suicidal prisoners were once dumped into spartan "strip" cells, but
those have now been phased out in favour of "safe" cells. These are
specially designed with furniture made from cardboard and without any
points " such as window bars, taps or pipes " from which a
prisoner can attach a home-made ligature. Once, prisoners were put on
15-minute or hourly watch by prison officers. Now, in theory, they
should be monitored by closed-circuit television cameras.

The latest idea is to shock prisoners "many of whom are using
suicide attempts as a cry for help " by telling them that, actually,
it is quite easy to kill yourself.

The campaign is needed because the toll of suicides is rising again
and at a higher level than the prison population: 89 so far this year,
compared with 78 last year and 72 in 2000. About half of this year's
cases were aged under 30, and 12 of those were under 20. Hanging is
overwhelmingly the preferred method.

In an interview with The Independent, the Prison Service's director
general, Martin Narey, said the escalating toll caused him distress.
"I get paged day or night when there's a suicide," he said. "It's
happened 89 times this year and it's very depressing."

When Mr Narey took up his post in 1999, he voiced concern that the
suicide rate had doubled in 15 years from 62 to 125 per 100,000
inmates. He said that reducing the rate of deaths was his "number-one
priority". But the rate this year is at its highest ever, at 130 per
100,000, and it is considered a real possibility that more than 100
prisoners will kill themselves in one year for the first time.

Many inquests into such prison tragedies record verdicts of
"accidental death". Mr Narey is certain many are cries for help that
go wrong. "Most of us believe that putting something around a
hand-basin or something from a bottom bunk, inches above floor level,
would not lead us to lose control. It patently does," he said. "All
the evidence shows that particularly young people have no idea how
easy it is to kill themselves, particularly by hanging. The reality is
that it's frighteningly easy for someone to succeed in hanging
themselves."

The difficulty for prison staff in preventing such tragedies is in
identifying the inmates who are most vulnerable. Critics say they are
often inadequately trained for the task.

But with the prison population at a record 73,000, and admissions to
some prisons up by 25 per cent, the throughput of new prisoners is
such that staff increasingly fail to pick out individuals that are at
risk. At least 5,000 prisoners have some kind of mental problems.

Mr Narey said judges and magistrates also had to understand that in
sentencing so many people to jail they were sending some to their
deaths: "We need sentencers to listen to the sentencing message from
the Home Secretary and the Lord Chief [Justice], because I believe
that if we had a few thousand fewer people in custody we would get on
top of this again and the numbers would go on a downward path," he
said.

Research on this year's fatalities has shown that most of those who
die have been in prison for less than a month. Almost half of the
suicides are among those on remand and two-thirds take place in
"local'' prisons, which cater for those awaiting trial and short sentences.

The issue is complicated, however, by the fact that many of those who
hang themselves have been in prison before.

"It's as if they come back in prison for the sixth or seventh time and
think, is this all life has for me, and take their own lives then," Mr
Narey said. "They appear to us to be very able to survive custody,
have done perfectly well before and appear to be no risk
whatsoever."

The rate compares unfavourably with prisons even in the United States,
where well under 100 per 100,000 take their own lives.

Mr Narey claimed this was a consequence of refusing to leave
vulnerable prisoners in bare "strip cells" without clothes or
furniture. He said that the reinstatement of such degrading conditions
would only lead to more suicides when prisoners were released back
into society.

"A lot of parents ask why we haven't taken shoelaces from their
children," he said. "The reason is that we are trying to treat people
with dignity and support them discreetly."

Ms Crook is convinced the poster campaign will not work. "Mostly these
are young people and we need to sit down and talk to them," she said.

She is also cynical about "safe" cells " "you can't design out
misery" " and critical of the system for failing to communicate
among its component parts, as in the case of Kevin Jacobs.

Last week the Howard League won a significant victory in a High Court
ruling that said local authorities had a statutory duty to safeguard
the welfare of children in prison. "They shouldn't be there in the
first place, but if they are, then the social services departments
have to be more proactive in looking after them,'' Ms Crook said.

But, ultimately, she agrees with Mr Narey that the real way of
reducing suicides requires more fundamental reform to reduce the
numbers in prison, particularly of the vulnerable.

"When they are there, there simply aren't enough staff to look after
them because of overcrowding," she said.

"But really, most of these people " and many are children " should
not be in prison and the courts and the penal system should do more to
keep them out and care for them somewhere more suitable.''
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MAP posted-by: Derek