The Government has a duty to hold people safely in custody and to take active steps to protect life. In response to a rising tide of self-inflicted deaths and serious self-harm, in 2017 the IAPDC focussed on the prevention of suicide in prison custody. Working in partnership with Inside Time, the prisoners’ and detainees’ newspaper, National Prison Radio, and the Samaritans, we developed ‘Keeping Safe’, a substantive programme of work with prisoner consultation at its heart. A guiding principle of the IAPDC is to reflect the views of people in custody, and where possible their families, in our advice to Ministers and officials.
Read keeping safe – preventing suicide and self-harm in custody
The IAPDC received over 100 letters and 50 recorded messages from prisoners across 60 prisons set on thoughts regarding both the problems and solutions required. The problems identified by contributors included:
- A marked reduction in staffing levels combined with the loss of experienced, trusted staff, and the accompanying reduction in activities, time out of cell and time to listen and talk
- The contempt with which some officers behaved towards prisoners in contrast to the compassion shown by others
- Unmet mental health, drug and alcohol treatment needs
- An increase in illicit drug use, intimidation, violence and debt in custody
- The high numbers of recalls, and the feelings of hopelessness in those past tariff on IPP sentences.
The solutions offered by prisoners were often the positive mirror image of the above, such as:
- Staff with the time and professionalism to support and encourage the prisoners in their custody
- Tackling debt and bullying in prisons
- Greater time out of cell and more meaningful activities such as work, exercise and education and an increase in contact with family
- Coming to grips with, amongst others, the enduring impact of the abolished IPP sentence; an incentives scheme (IEP) that has become unduly punitive; an assessment and care system (ACCT) that in some instances has been reduced to a box-ticking exercise; and overuse of recalls to custody for administrative reasons.
Outcomes
Keeping Safe findings were published in September and profiled on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme. In the full report published in December 2017, prisoners’ views and solutions. In the full report, prisoners’ views and solutions were underpinned by national and international standards and recommendations made by, amongst others, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, the Prison and Probation Ombudsman, the Chief Coroner and the National Audit Office. ‘Keeping Safe’ was presented in evidence to, and reflected by, the Justice and Health Select Committees and the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
It informed the National Institute for Clinical Excellence revised guidelines on suicide prevention. It was discussed by the Ministerial Board on Deaths in Custody and recommendations were accepted by Ministers and officials. Director General of the Prison Service, Phil Copple, reported to the Board in June 2019 on progress made on implementation. These include the introduction of the keyworker scheme, mental health awareness training and regime changes.
The IAPDC commends HMPPS for its positive response to Keeping Safe. The Director General has maintained safer custody as a top priority during the pandemic. Since 2017, there has been a slight, welcome and continuing, reduction in the number of deaths by suicide in prison. Until recently there has been a marked and troubling rise in self-harm. There is much more to be done to protect lives and keep people safe. Learning from the period under COVID-19 will help inform this process.
Keeping Safe Conference 2020
On 25 February 2020, the IAPDC in conjunction with Inside time, Samaritans and Prison Radio Association, hosted the inaugural conference. A rallying point for suicide prevention, the event brought together over 200 delegates and speakers, Samaritan Listeners, Ministers, practitioners, policy makers and prisoners’ families.
- Keeping Safe 2020 Programme
- Keynote speech: SoS Robert Buckland MP
- Keeping Safe 2020 Presentations
- Samaritans speech
- Inside Time Conference Report
- Prison Governors Association speech: Andrea Albutt
Keeping Safe Conference podcast
This podcast is an audio record of the day, including interviews with key contributors, which was produced by the Prison Radio Association.
Next steps
The Keeping Safe conference brought together a large group of people who made a strong commitment to do all they could in their different ways to protect lives. Now the IAPDC will do all we can to make sure that practical points and proposed changes put forward by speakers and delegates can be progressed over the coming year and beyond so there will be good outcomes. This means:
- Involving families, whenever possible, as advisors at every stage in the criminal justice process;
- Ensuring that the helpline for families and friends works well in every prison;
- Supporting and strengthening invaluable work done by the Samaritans and Listeners in every establishment across England and Wales;
- Emphasising the importance of good leadership, strengthening the influence of decent, compassionate staff and improving staff training;
- Making more effective use of reports and recommendations made by Coroners, regulators and independent monitors and supporting the development of a national oversight mechanism to ensure
compliance; - Developing a risk assessment to examine impact, and report, on prisoner and staff safety before major policy and operational changes are made;
- Applying research to practice to reduce self-harm;
- Gaining a proper response to people with mental health needs by strengthening liaison and diversion services and increasing court use of community sentences with mental health treatment
requirements; - And, above all, working with partners to call a halt to the use of prison as a place of safety.
Preventing the deaths of women in prison
In 2016 there were 12 self-inflicted deaths in women’s prisons in England – the highest number recorded since 2004. In response to these tragic deaths, and in order to prevent further deaths, at the end of December 2016 the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody (IAPDC) began a rapid information gathering exercise calling on members of the Ministerial Council on Deaths in Custody, the Advisory Board on Female Offenders and IAP stakeholders for their views on how best to prevent suicide and self-harm and keep women safe. At the same time the IAPDC convened consultation events in five women’s prisons to which 60 women contributed.
Drawing on the views of women prisoners and 40 health and justice professionals, the IAPDC produced a report, “Preventing the Deaths of Women in Prison” and launched it on Woman’s Hour BBC Radio 4 on 28 March 2017.’
Preventing the death of women in prison – March 2017
Women’s Hour on Radio 4 – 28 March 2017 (opens in new tab)
Outcomes
Findings and recommendations were presented to the Prisons Minister and the Advisory Board on Female Offenders. Dissemination was swift and suicide prevention summits convened for all governors of women’s prisons and heads of safer custody. Immediate changes were made to first night in custody and transfer arrangements, including retention of pinphone numbers. Mental health training was introduced for staff and improvements made to family
contact.
All IAPDC recommendations were accepted and incorporated into the new strategy on female offenders. Senior officials produced an action grid across health and justice mapping implementation of IAP recommendations together with those made in a thematic review of women’s deaths by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO). Regular progress updates have been produced. The report has also formed the basis of our written and oral evidence to the Justice and Joint Human Rights select committees and informed Public Health England gender specific standards to improve health and well-being for women in prison.
Although the number of women’s deaths has fallen from the dreadfully high number in 2016 which prompted this work, vulnerable women still die in prison and, until recently, self-harm has risen exponentially year on year.
Next steps
In 2020 the IAPDC will now ask the Advisory Board on Female Offenders for a three year audit of all our recommendations together with those made by the PPO. Early in 2021 a Keeping Safe event will be convened to focus on preventing the deaths of women in custody. This will reach out beyond prison walls to the role of women’s centres, community sentence treatment requirements and provision of safe housing on release for the comparatively few women for whom there can be no alternative to custody.
Inside Time
Born out of the 1990 Strangeways riots, Inside Time is Britain’s only national prison newspaper, committed to giving prisoners their own voice.
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