Prisoner's cell death

InsideTime The National Monthly Newspaper For Prisoners

UK: A prisoner was found hanged in his cell last week, the Home Office said, fuelling criticism over the soaring number of suicides in custody.

The apparent suicide of Stanley Murphy, 64, takes the number of deaths in custody since the start of June to eight. Murphy, from Torquay, was discovered by staff at Dorchester prison on Tuesday.

The chief inspector of prisons, Anne Owers, has voiced her concerns, linking the issue of suicide to problems of overcrowding and mental illness in Britain's jails.

Ms Owers said that self-inflicted deaths were occurring in institutions "at the sharp end of the problem we have of prison overcrowding".

She added: "Some while ago, we closed our big mental hospitals on the premise that people would get care in the community. They don't. They tend to end up in our prisons."

USA Prisons

The New Asylums

US: Fewer than 55,000 Americans currently receive treatment in psychiatric hospitals. Meanwhile, almost 10 times that number -- nearly 500,000 -- mentally ill men and women are serving time in U.S. jails and prisons.

Australian Prisons

Submission to Senate: Inquiry into Mental Health 2005

We appreciate that the urgent issues of Human Rights and other abuses including institutionalisation and the use of force, and the lack of progress on Burdekin are being examined by the Committee.

By Injustice posted 20 June

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