SUICIDE IN PRISON PRESS STATEMENT  13 Jan 2004

Juliet Lyon, Director, Prison Reform Trust, said today following the death of Harold Shipman:

“The Prison Reform Trust welcomes the decision that the Prisons Probation Ombudsman should investigate deaths in custody. This brings an important measure of independence to the process of learning lessons, which can then be applied to prison regimes, the design of cells, staff training, risk assessment and monitoring procedures.

One in five men in prison, and nearly 40 per cent of women, have attempted suicide at some time – rates that are much higher than in the general public. And at some stage in their sentence most prisoners are going to experience personal distress, mental health problems, drug dependency, or a lack of family support – all factors which increase the risk of suicide. Prison staff are under enormous pressure to predict who is at risk of suicide. On top of all this, overcrowding makes it extremely difficult for staff to prevent someone intent on taking their own life.

Shocking suicide rates show that the Prison Service is more often challenged in its duty to hold people safely and securely than those who try to escape. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 will, through its measures for both life sentence prisoners and some prisoners serving indeterminate sentences, increase the number of those who have little or no hope of release, which will pose further challenges for those working in our prisons.”