Prison Capacities

Lord Harries of Pentregarth Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, amid the serious general concern about the state of our prisons, which we all share, I want to focus particularly on the risk of prisoners committing suicide. The death of anyone by suicide is a great sadness but there is a particular forlornness, a sense of failure and defeat, when someone kills themselves in prison.

The number of self-inflicted deaths in prisons last year went down slightly, from 92 to 85, and the number of deaths—1 per 1,000 prisoners—has remained roughly the same since 2018. However, as we know, the rate of suicide in prison is much higher than it is in the population as a whole and 54% of deaths that occur in prison are self-inflicted. For a range of reasons, those in prison are particularly at risk of taking their own lives. Stresses that contribute to those deaths include mental health struggles, deaths of loved ones, planned transfers to different institutions, the prospect of deportation, lack of family support and sex offender status. It is easy to see how those factors, often in combination with one another, can push people to the brink of despair.

A breakdown of the kind of person likely to kill themselves and the time they are at most risk is revealing. I do not have the most up-to-date figures, but those from previous years reveal that those most at risk are predominantly male, nearly all white and in the age groups 21 to 24 and 30 to 39. Moreover, a high percentage of suicides took place in the first 30 days in prison, even the first week, the rate being particularly high among those on remand, mostly by hanging. Arrival in prison is a particularly high time of risk. One-fifth of prisoners who take their own lives in prison do so within seven days of reception, and 39% of them die within a month of arrival. All this indicates a group of people who are particularly at risk.

What steps are taken in the early stages of remand in prison to try to identify those most at risk? Is the Minister really satisfied that those who are mentally unstable are given the opportunity to see a medical specialist?