UK: Deaths in custody - "We are sending people to die"
01 November 2004
A total of 95 inmates, including 13 women, killed themselves in jails in England and Wales in 2004, equalling the record set two years earlier. In the last week of 2004, Carl Dunn, 38, was discovered hanging from sheets at HMP Bullingdon, and Dennis Williams, 23, was found hanging in his cell at HMP Bedford. The number of self-inflicted deaths in jail is now running at a rate of one every four days. One third of suicides occur within a prisoners first week in custody. Nearly two-thirds of those who commit suicide have a history of drug mis-use.
In November 2004 the UN Committee on Torture criticised the unsatisfactory conditions in British prisons, and expressed particular concern at the "substantial numbers of deaths in custody, inter-prisoner violence, and overcrowding." In December 2004, the Joint Committee on Human Rights condemned the "serious failure by the state to protect the right to life" in relation to deaths in custody, and called on the government to establish a task force to address the issue as a matter of urgency. Frances Crook, of the Howard League, commented "Its political. We have three parties now competing to be tough on crime. Its a punitive debate of hate and fear. The line goes directly from the noose to the Home Secretary. We don't have capital punishment, but we are sending people to prison to die." For the Prison Reform Trust, Juliet Lyons said "These tragic deaths should shock but not surprise. The suicide rate will not be brought down unless and until schemes are developed to divert the mot vulnerable from courts into health settings rather than prisons."
Among his last acts before resigning, Blunkett declined to hold a public inquiry into the abuse of inmates at Wormwood Scrubs (following a call from the family of John Boyle, found hanging in his cell at the Scrubs in 1994, after being "restrained" by officers) and refused to meet Pauline Campbell, Pauline Hart, Mel Buckley, Nalini Kotecher and Janet Wade, mothers of some of those who had died under Blunkett's care. (A copy of the text of their open letter to Blunkett can be obtained from Pauline Campbell at:- paulinecampbell1@tiscali.co.uk )
Guardian 2.12.04; Independent 1.1.05; Howard League for Penal Reform; Prison Reform Trust.