Prisons - new material (59)
01 November 2004
"I have served my time", Jason Bennetto.
Independent Review 12.10.04, pp 2-3. Article on 68-year old Harry Roberts who received a life sentence, with a 30-year tariff, for shooting dead two police officers in 1966. Roberts "knew that he would spend most of his life locked up for such a crime" but expected to be paroled and released back into the community when the tariff expired in 1996. However, in 2001 a recommendation for parole was rejected after he was accused of unspecified criminal behaviour that, according to Home secretary, David Blunkett, must remain secret. This has led to a number of unsuccessful challenges against the Home Secretary and the Parole Board, "which has raised the prospect of Roberts staying in jail until he dies."
Scandal of society's misfits dumped in jail, Trapped in a cycle of self-harm and despair for want of a psychiatric bed & Wasted lives of the young let down by the system, Nick Davies.
Guardian 6-8.12.04. Three part series that examines "the scandal of the mentally disordered dumped in jail". It considers the mentally ill and suicide and self harm, the severely ill and children with mental health problems.