Archive for the ‘Self-injuring’ Category

The death of Aleksey Baranovsky

The bleeding to death of Aleksey Baranovsky in the privately run Rye Hill prison is an outrage. It took him hours to die. He had repeatedly injured himself and was meant to be on a special watch to protect him. 
Last year 60 prisoners took their own lives in prisons; an improvement on previous years but [...]

September 24, 2009  Tags:   Posted in: Prisons, Self-injuring  One Comment

Prison suicides call for radical change

I have just given a talk on suicide in prisons to MPs and Peers in the all party parliamentary group on suicide prevention.  I talked about Jeffrey Horler, a 15 year old from Great Yarmouth who came from a very poor family and who had a history of minor trouble when he set fire to [...]

July 14, 2009  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Campaigns, Inside prisons, Self-injuring  2 Comments

Women dying in custody

We launched a campaign to prevent women dying in custody today and had a bit of a run about with the figures.  So some explanation might be helpful.  The main focus of our work over years has been how we could work to reduce the use of prison for women (and men) and prevent deaths.
I [...]

July 13, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Campaigns, Government policy, Howard League, Inside prisons, Self-injuring, Women in custody  One Comment

Injuring yourself is not self-harm

We are very pleased that the Ministry of Justice has finally got its act together to appoint another chair for our public inquiry into the treatment of SP.  But, they insist on talking about her “self-harm”.  Self harm is smoking a cigarette or having one too many beers.
She was injuring herself, which is a whole [...]

March 4, 2009   Posted in: Self-injuring  No Comments

Preventing suicides in custody

I went to the final meeting of the Ministerial meeting on preventing suicides in custody.  I was a founder member 11 years ago and have met with 10 prisons ministers, this one is Shahid Malik.  The meetings have brought together the Chief Inspector, chief operating officers and heads of health and probation with the key [...]

February 26, 2009   Posted in: Self-injuring  No Comments

Responsibility for prison deaths rests with ministers

After the initial shock of the death of someone close to you, it is the little things that remind you of the loss, daily.  I have resisted taking Pauline’s phone number off my mobile, so everytime I scroll through my contacts, she is there.  A reminder of her as a person, but also her media [...]

June 27, 2008   Posted in: Self-injuring  No Comments

Attempted suicide should not result in charges

Update on last entry:
Our lawyer made written representations to the prison and the lad had the charges against him dropped.  No one should ever face disciplinary charges for attempting suicide or self-injury – indeed that is exactly what the prison rules say.  So not only was this prison acting with consumate cruelty but it was [...]

April 17, 2008   Posted in: Government policy, Self-injuring  No Comments

Poem by a self-harmer

Our legal team works with some very unhappy children, supporting them , caring for them and often being the only adults who stick with them consistently. One of the lads we have worked with for several years is one of the most prolific self harmers in the system. We are thinking about trying to get [...]

November 28, 2007   Posted in: Self-injuring  No Comments