CHRIS TILBURY
Words are no longer adequate to discuss the simmering conditions inside our prisons, so let’s try a few numbers. In 2010, 58 prisoners in England and Wales killed themselves. Last year, the number was 199—that’s an increase from about one suicide a week to approaching four. Suicide, of course, is only ever the tip of an iceberg of misery. In 2010, there were 26,979 recorded incidents of self-harm; last year there were over 40,000. And what about violence that turns outwards instead of in? In 2010, there were 2,848 recorded assaults on prison staff and 11,244 inmate-on-inmate assaults. Last year those numbers were 6,844 and 19,088 respectively.
In 2015-16 almost 21,000 prisoners were held in overcrowded accommodation, many doubling up in cells designed for one. In some prisons, the ratio of prisoners to staff officers is as high as 30:1—fully three times the level of staffing that many of the experts suggest is wise. The output of this brutal, broken system remains stubbornly unreformed. Forty-four per cent of adults are reconvicted within one year, and that figure rises to 59 per cent for those serving futile short spells. Heaven knows what it would rise to if we were able to include all those who reoffend but don’t get caught.