Suicides soar in women's prisons

26/07/2007

In the first six months of 2007, six women have committed suicide in England and Wales, more than the whole of either of the last two years, according to the Fawcett Society's Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System report published yesterday.

The Fawcett Society writes:

"the Government has not yet responded to the recommendations of the Corston review of vulnerable women in the criminal justice system, and since its publication in March 2007 four more women have taken their own lives in prison".

The report examines the work that has been done in the last year to improve the criminal justice system for women, as offenders, victims and staff and concludes that:

a) Prison is overused, ineffective and often damaging for many women offenders, while existing community sentences often fail to meet the needs of women.

b) Services for female victims of crime are geographically patchy and vary in quality. Violence against women remains at crisis levels, and the Government has failed to produce a national strategy to address violence against women, a key recommendation of last year’s Commission report.

c) The implementation of the gender equality duty must be prioritised across the criminal justice system to ensure that all criminal justice agencies are meeting their legal obligations.

GCN barristers have been involved in a number of inquests into the deaths in custody of women prisoners:

08/12/06 Inquest verdict questions appropriateness of prison for vulnerable women

12/05/06 Highly critical verdict in Rebecca Turner inquest

02/12/05 Damning verdict returned into Wendy Booth's death in condemned Durham Prison