Understaffing in the prison system in England and Wales is contributing to the number of self-inflicted deaths of young adults, an independent review has found.
The report makes 108 recommendations for change, and said each death of a young person was a failure by the state. The report examined 83 self-inflicted deaths of adults, including two women aged 18-24, and four children’s deaths between April 2007 and December 2013. Since it was completed, a further 22 young adults have taken their own lives.
Lord Harris said: “Each death represents the heartbreaking loss of someone’s son or daughter, brother or sister, parent or partner. Each is a failure by the state to protect the young people concerned, made all the greater because the same criticisms have occurred time and time again.”
Harris said his review found that understaffing was a contributory issue. “Understaffing has clearly been a contributory factor in many of the deaths and it would be of enormous concern to us if current resource levels were made any worse in prisons,” he said. “We came across mental health appointments being missed because there were not sufficient staff to escort the prisoner.
“Current operation staffing levels are not adequate even when the current recruitment exercises have been completed; the benchmark levels of staffing need to be reviewed.”
He called for prison leaders to do more to make sure young people were given purposeful activities to do and said they should be spending at least eight hours a day outside their cells.
Harris said it was surprising that the National Offender Management System (Noms) did not know how many safer cells there were in the establishment, nor how many hours prisoners spend outside their cells. He also highlighted a lack of proper policies to deal with gangs and gang culture within prisons. While concern was raised about the disproportionate mix of black and ethnic minority young adult inmates to white staff, the report found that those who died were far more likely to be white young adult prisoners.
Harris said: ”Lessons have not been learned and not enough has been done to bring about substantive change. While there is no simple and easy solution, it is clear that the prison service needs to make radical changes to protect the most vulnerable people in custody more effectively.
“Young adults in prison are not sufficiently engaged in purposeful activity and the prison environment is grim, bleak and demoralising to the spirit.”
The recommendations included:
- Prisons should be seen as a last resort for young people.
- There should be a fundamental review of the purpose of prison, putting rehabilitation at its focus.
- All young adults should spend at least eight hours outside their cell.
- Noms must review the minimum number of safer cells in the estate.
- More time should be spent in purposeful activity.
- The minister for prisons should personally phone the family of a prisoner who has died.
- A 24-hour bullying hotline should be set up, so that prisoners or their families can report problems.
- Each young adult should have a suitably qualified and experienced staff member as their custody and rehabilitation officer.
The report was commissioned by the Ministry of Justice after growing concern over the number of young adults taking their own lives in custody, and the number of times the same themes of failures were emerging. In 2013, two unannounced inspections of Feltham young offender 0nstitution raised serious concerns about the safety of young people there and the levels of violence.
