How many more Charlie Todds must there be before our prisons are reformed? – The suicide of a young inmate points up how indifferent we are now to conditions in jail
How many more Charlie Todds must there be before our prisons are reformed? – The suicide of a young inmate points up how indifferent we are now to conditions in jail
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For comparison, the suicide rate in prisons is approx x10 that of the UK rate as a whole. (Approx 1 in 1000 in prisons, compared to 1 in 10,000 across the general population).
Prison reform would cost way more cash then any uk government will invest. Most jails are not fit for purpose and seeing as titan prisons like Hmp five wells are now a thing most won’t be close to anyone or anything. Our prison policy is short sighted and always has been.
The problem is that people *want* prisons to be shit. They subscribe to the Victorian “solitude and servitude”¹ nonsense. Mostly people who will have had no interaction with the prison system, of course. Its not the popular thing to do to make prison less shit.
¹I’ve used that quote before. It’s from an Adam Hart-Davis documentary called *What The Victorians Did For Us*.