In October 2020 the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) released statistics which indicate that a prisoner in England and Wales dies by suicide every five days, that incidents of self-harm have increased for a seventh year running and that they are continuing to increase. This is being exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. SEAMUS O’TUAIRISC reports.
Between September 2019 and September 2020, 282 people died in prison. Seventy deaths were ‘self-inflicted’ (a 23% decrease from the previous year); 174 were classed as ‘natural causes’; 26 were confirmed to be from coronavirus and two were homicides.
While there is a small overall drop of 8% in prison deaths compared with the previous year, the increase in self-harm indicates that there could soon be a sharp spike in suicides. The suicide rate in English and Welsh prisons is more than eight times higher the national average of 11.6 deaths per 100,000 people. Self-harm increases the likelihood that a person will die by suicide within a 12-month period and around 50% of prisoners who take their lives had a history of self-harm.
In the year to June 2020, 61,153 self-harm incidents occurred in prisons, equivalent to roughly 167 incidents per day. Among the youngest category of prisoners, those aged 15-17 years-old, the rate of self-harm was as high as 1,643 incidents per thousand.
High self-harm levels are clearly linked to an excessive amount of time spent locked inside cells. Other contributing factors include poor prison living conditions and a lack of purposeful activity. In his 2019-20 report, Chief Inspector of Prisons Peter Clarke found that 19% of adult male prisoners were out of their cells for less than two hours on weekdays. Clarke described this as ‘unacceptably poor’ and said that although incidences of self-harm are being measured, nothing is being done to understand the reasons behind them. Many prisoners have reported that they are self-harming to gain attention when requests, applications or complaints are being ignored.
The National Institute for Healthcare Excellence has identified remand prisoners and prisoners serving life sentences as the two groups most at risk of self-harm and suicide.
On 11 February 2019, remand prisoner Garry Beadle hanged himself in HMP Durham after only six days in prison. He displayed many signs he was high risk. In the week prior to his incarceration, he had attempted suicide by hanging and overdose, and had informed a magistrate and his solicitor that he would ‘not last two days in prison’. Although he arrived at Durham with a self-harm warning form and told a senior prison officer that he would attempt suicide, the officer failed to record this. During Beadle’s initial health screening, the nurse failed to record that he had previously attempted suicide, even though this was on his warning form. The inquest into his death concluded on 27 October 2020 that poor record-keeping and information-sharing may have contributed to his death. HMP Durham has one of the highest numbers of self-inflicted deaths in England and Wales, with 25 deaths over the past 10 years.
No relief during pandemic
Since March 2020 a harsh 23-hour-a-day lockdown policy has been imposed across all prisons in response to Covid-19, with most prison workshops and all educational programmes being closed down. For the first four months no prison visits, social or legal, were allowed; although in some prisons they subsequently recommenced, subject to stringent social distancing measures and prone to frequent cancellation. This extreme reduction in contact with family, friends and legal teams further increases the risk of prisoners developing mental health issues.
Restrictions also extend to young offenders’ institutions and ‘secure training centres’, where children as young as 12 have been kept in solitary confinement. UN special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer has condemned this as extreme and inhumane, pointing out that solitary confinement for young people is even more extreme than for adults and should never be seen as a reasonable response to the pandemic.
On top of all of this, staff violence against prisoners has increased. At HMP Dartmoor, staff ‘use of force’ has doubled since lockdown restrictions were imposed.
As we have previously reported, despite the MOJ announcing in March that non-violent offenders could be released during the pandemic under the End of Custody Temporary Release programme, this was barely implemented and fewer than 300 were freed.
The rapid increase in self-harm is the result of a failing prison system with no regard for the well-being and needs of the most vulnerable prisoners. Already punitive and neglectful, the system has deteriorated further as a result of the pandemic. Although welcomed by the thugs in the Prison Officers Association, excessive lockdown can only result in further degradation of prisoners’ mental and physical health.
Death in Belmarsh
On 2 November, Manoel Santos took his own life at Belmarsh prison. Santos was a gay man who had lived in Britain for 20 years and was detained under immigration law, facing the prospect of deportation to Brazil, where he feared violence and discrimination at the hands of the Bolsonaro government. During his time at Belmarsh, Santos befriended Julian Assange who has been held there throughout the pandemic, and who is currently awaiting decision on his extradition to the US to face charges of espionage. Assange’s supporters have used their networks to publicise Santos’ death and to highlight the terrible conditions within Belmarsh and across the prison system.
