NINE inmates have committed suicide at Hewell Prison in the last three years – putting it on a par with a prison like Wormwood Scrubs in London and only one less than Wandsworth jail.
The shock figures are revealed by campaigning group the Howard League for Penal Reform and come just two weeks after members of the Prison Officers Association held a protest across the UK, including at HMP Hewell.
There officers told how it was getting more and more difficult to protect inmates due to low staffing levels, poor cell maintenance and the constant influx of synthetic drugs and mobile phones flown in by drones.
This has led to inmates who are being bullied having their family on the outside being threatened.
Conditions are so tough for prison officers across the country that they’re leaving the profession faster than they can be recruited, despite Government incentives for them to stay.
The Howard League said more than 100 people have lost their lives through suicide in prisons in England and Wales so far this year, an all-time record.
With five weeks remaining until the end of the year, it is already the highest death toll in a calendar year since current recording practices began in 1978. The previous high was in 2004, when 96 deaths by suicide were recorded.
This year HMP Hewell has faired better than in previous years with just one life being lost.
Recommendations to tackle the problem are set out in a new report, Preventing prison suicide, jointly published by the Howard League and another charity, Centre for Mental Health.
The report finds that the rise in the number of prison suicides has coincided with cuts to staffing and budgets and a rise in the number of people in prison, resulting in overcrowding. Violence has increased and safety has deteriorated.
Prisoners are spending up to 23 hours a day locked in their cells, the imposition of prison punishments has increased, and a more punitive daily regime was introduced in prisons at the same time as the number of deaths by suicide began to rise.
The prison suicide rate, at 120 deaths per 100,000 people, is about 10 times higher than the rate in the general population.
The report states that investing in staffing must go hand in hand with a reduction in the prison population if prisons are to be made safer.
