Prison suicides rise as hopes for reform fall

The figures for prison suicides, or ‘self-inflicted deaths in custody’ to use official terminology, leapt by an unprecedented 37% in 2007. 92 men, women and children died in custody last year, compared to only 67 in 2006. An analysis by the Howard League for Penal Reform shows that eight women killed themselves, an increase of 167% on the previous year, while seven under-21s - including a 15 year old jailed for only six weeks – committed suicide, an increase of 250% on 2006. Although suicide figures had recently been in decline, thanks to a focus on safer custody within the prison service, the intolerable pressures of overcrowding on regime, staff and resources have finally seen the banks of this particular river burst, and the resultant flood is one of human lives.

The annual suicide figures are a reliable barometer for the health of our prison system, and by extension society as a whole. It is one reason the Conservatives were prepared to put the boot in to the government in the new year coverage of 2007’s prison suicides, because it plays into the theme of the ‘broken society’ they have assiduously cultivated.

There is a brief history lesson worth outlining here. New Labour, by seeking to be ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’, was always more enthused by the former than the latter. Tony Blair heeded the example of Bill Clinton in avoiding accusations of being ‘soft on crime’ and utilizing triangulation to adopt policies more associated with the right. Clinton, in turn, had taken his lesson from the treatment meted out to Michael Dukakis by George Bush Snr during the 1988 US presidential elections – when the infamous Republican attack ad based on the Willie Horton case helped Bush to the White House and Dukakis to political oblivion.

The government’s ever-tougher sentencing and pandering to tabloid conceptions of criminal justice is all a symptom of the events of 1988 across the Atlantic. The long view, the truly progressive option, has at every turn been ignored for short term fixes and headlines. While it may seem strange to claim that helping to secure ten years and counting in power was a short term outcome to New Labour’s attitudes to criminal justice, the chaos and desperation of a system now heaving under the weight of 81,000+ prisoners is only the beginning of what may be some particularly nasty chickens coming home to roost for society.

There are the horrendous reconviction rates for ex-prisoners, with an average of two thirds – rising to more than three quarters of men aged 18-20 - being reconvicted within two years of release. There is the damage to families when parents are locked up. There are the host of mentally ill people languishing in prison, with more than 70% in custody suffering from mental health disorders and self-harm, particularly among women and children, rife. There is the failure to tackle drug addiction, a major motivator for criminal activity, and the failure to provide real work opportunities – not simply training - for those in custody that might raise them from a life of crime.

I could go very easily go on. But the government knows all this. Not so very deep down, ministers know that an overuse of custody is creating as many social problems as it temporarily solves by warehousing people who commit crimes. Ministers also know that their sentencing policies have seen more people jailed than ever before, and that the system will never be able to cope with these people until the policies are reformed and the numbers entering custody are reduced.

Yet in early December, we learned that the Ministry of Justice’s response to the prisons crisis would be to build even bigger warehouses, three Titan prisons which will house 2,500 inmates each and be built, ominously, with “optimal sight lines which would result in better staff utilization and deliver staff savings.” Not just giant jails, but giant jails on the cheap. The lack of imagination, the lack of foresight, is appalling.  At least they secured a good headline - 'At last it's time to cell-ebrate' - in The Sun, though.

The government is in danger here of being outflanked by David Cameron’s Conservatives. The opposition have recognised that the general public are dimly aware that Labour has been ‘tough on crime’ and yet in poll after poll people express how they feel unsafer than ever. There is an appetite out there for some kind of criminal justice reform. And while the Tories appear as unwilling as Labour to grasp the nettle of reforming sentencing to reduce prison numbers, and risk any suggestion of reducing public protection, they are talking – and more to the point, really thinking – about how to reform the experience of custody itself and make it more rehabilitative.

Contrast this with a government currently pushing through 3% budget cuts throughout criminal justice, despite the fact that the courts, prisons and probation service deal with more people than ever before thanks to their policies. Contrast this with a government still obsessed with attempting to perform Clinton-style triangulation on the Conservatives and crime and blithely ignoring the problems for the future that it is storing up in our jails.

As I write this, the media is gorging on Hillary Clinton’s humiliation in the Iowa Democratic caucuses and the sudden elevation of Barack Obama. Hillary, once described as ‘Mrs Triangulation’ by the New York Times, may yet win the Democratic nomination and yet win the White House. But perhaps there truly is a new mood sweeping through America that it would be worth the government, and the Labour party as a whole, to take note of. Perhaps triangulation has had its day. It certainly has in the field of criminal justice.