Preventing Self-injury and Suicide in Women's Prisons

Tammi Walker

Description

Examines all aspects of the history, present practices, causes and prevention prospects connected to self-injury and suicide in women's prisons.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Social work
• Offenders
• Prison

Informations

• Publié par: Waterside Press
• Date de parution: 10 février 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781910979044
• Langue: English

Extrait

Preventing Self-injury and Suicide in Women’s Prisons
Copyright and publication details
ISBN 978-1-909976-29-0 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-910979-04-4 (EPUB ebook)
ISBN 978-1-910979-05-1 (PDF ebook)
Copyright © 2016 Tammi Walker and Graham Towl. All intellectual property and associated rights are hereby asserted and reserved by the copyright holders in full compliance with UK, European and international law. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means or language including in hard copy or via the internet, without the prior written permission of Waterside Press to whom all such rights have been assigned worldwide. The Foreword is the copyright of Lord Toby Harris subject to the same conditions.
Cover design © 2016 Waterside Press.
Main UK distributor Gardners Books, 1 Whittle Drive, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN23 6QH. Tel: [phone]; [e-mail] ; www.gardners.com
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Cataloguing-In-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.
Printed by CPI Group, Chippenham, UK.
e-book Preventing Self-injury and Suicide in Women’s Prisons is available as an ebook and also to subscribers of Myilibrary, Dawsonera, ebrary, and Ebscohost.
Published 2016 by
Waterside Press
Sherfield Gables
Sherfield-on-Loddon
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United Kingdom RG27 0JG
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Online catalogue WatersidePress.co.uk
Preventing Self-injury and Suicide in Women’s Prisons
Tammi Walker and Graham Towl
Foreword Lord Toby Harris
‘Walker and Towl’s new book is a really welcome addition to the suicide and self-injury literature. It covers considerable ground in a concise and accessible way. Not only does it provide great coverage of the key issues around suicide and self-injury in women’s prisons, it provides really helpful tips on supporting women, on staff training and on managing the aftermath of a suicide. I highly recommend this book’:
Professor Rory O’Connor, University of Glasgow.
‘Very helpful in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of current practice and understanding why reductions in the prison population and a holistic approach to care are vital in saving lives’:
Dr Jo Borrill, University of Westminster.
‘The question that arises from this book is, “How can we as a society heap any more punishment on people who are already punishing themselves?”’:
Mark Johnson MBE, author of Wasted (Sphere, 2008), founder of the charity User Voice and CanDo Coffee.
‘[The authors] bring an often neglected subject into sharp relief and, refreshingly, they are not afraid to make some strong, evidence-based assertions about the direction of penal policy and gaps in our understanding’:
Anita Dockley, Research Director, Howard League for Penal Reform.
Dedication
We dedicate this book to all the women and girls who have been ­imprisoned, we believe that you deserve to be treated with respect and enabled to achieve all that life has to offer.
A Personal Account from Tracey
‘I started self-harming when I was ten-years-old, that was when the problems with my Mum started and I often ran away from home for periods of time, but when I was at home I self-harmed by cutting.
Self-harming made me feel relieved and it distracted me from the way I was feeling. At the time I was feeling really scared and puzzled about what was going to happen with my Mum and me. I still self-harm now that I am in prison, to cope you know, but I don’t want to feel this way anymore or keep hurting myself. I want things to change.’
Table of Contents
Copyright and publication details ii
Dedication v
A Personal Account from Tracey vi
Foreword xi
About the authors xv
The author of the Foreword xvi
Acknowledgements xvii Suicide and Self-injury of Imprisoned Women and Adolescent Girls 19
Introduction 19
Suicide and Self-injury 20
New Punitiveness and Managerialism 21
Mental Health Needs 22
Themes and Perspectives: Language 23
Themes and Perspectives: Criminal Justice Ideology 24
Chapter Summary Points 26
Future Directions 27 Self-injury and Suicide: Research Informed Change 29
Overview 29
Definitional Issues 29
Definitional concerns in prison-based studies 32
Contextual Issues Associated with Self-injury and Suicide 33
Individual factors 33
Situational factors 34
Psychosocial factors 34
Prison Service Monitoring and Management of Self-injury and Suicide Up Until 2000 35
Strategic Factors in the Year 2000 and Beyond 37
Evaluating the Changes 40
Chapter Summary Points 42
Future Directions 43 Self-injury and Suicide Among Imprisoned Women and Adolescent Girls 45
Introduction 45
Prevalence Rates 45
Suicide 49
Risk Factors for Self-injury 50
Demographic profile 51
Clinical factors 52
Institutional variables 54
Psychological Functions for Self-injury 55
Intrapersonal functions 55
Interpersonal functions 58
Chapter summary points 59
Future Directions 59 Supporting Women and Adolescent Girls with Poly-victimisation Histories in Custody 63
Overview 63
Introduction 63
Trauma Histories: Poly-victimised Imprisoned Women and Adolescent Girls 64
Poly-victimisation 65
Effects of pervasive poly-victimisation on health and crime 66
Effects of imprisonment on poly-victimised women and adolescent girls 69
Supporting women and adolescent girls in prison with poly-victimisation histories 73
Conclusion 78
Chapter summary points 78
Future directions 79 Preventing Self-injury and Suicide 81
Moving Away from Using ‘At-risk’ Strategies 81
The Prison Environment 82
Reception and first night 82
Social intervention 85
Mental health treatment 87
Purposeful activity 87
Bullying and safety 88
Psychological Interventions for Women and Adolescent Girls Who Self-injure in Prison 90
Options modified dialectical behaviour therapy 91
Women Offenders Repeat Self-harm Intervention Pilot II (WORSHIP II) 93
Complicating Issues 96
Chapter Summary Points 98
Future Directions 98 Staff Training for Self-injury and Suicide 101
Overview 101
Background 101
Prison Officer Training 102
Continued training and development 104
HM Prison Service training programmes for self-injury and suicide 1993 onwards 105
Skills-based training on risk management (STORM) for prison staff 107
Current framework for training in self-injury and suicide 111
Impact on Prison Staff Working with Self-injury and Suicide 112
Chapter Summary Points 115
Future Directions 115 The Aftermath of a Self-inflicted Death in Prison Custody 119
Overview 119
Introduction 119
Death, Bereavement and the Grief Process 120
Suicide bereavement 122
Bereavement following a self-inflicted death in prison 125
The Coroner Process, Inquest and Verdict 125
Self-inflicted Deaths in Prison and their Impact on Families, Prisoners and Staff 127
Bereaved families 128
Prisoners 129
Prison staff 130
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder 131
Procedures Following a Self-inflicted Death in Custody 134
Promoting Resilience in Prison Staff 136
Chapter Summary Points 138
Future Directions 139
Appendix 143
References 145
Index 171
Foreword
Lord Toby Harris
When my colleagues and I began our independent inquiry into the self-inflicted deaths of young people in prison or young offender institutions (YOIs) (‘The Harris Review: Changing Prisons, Saving Lives’, Cm 9087, July 2015), it was immediately apparent that virtually all of the tragic and avoidable deaths that we were examining were of boys and young men. Indeed of the 87 cases we examined in detail, only two were of young women. The received wisdom was that while women and young girls were more likely to self-harm, the number of self-inflicted deaths was greater amongst men and boys (although the absolute numbers in the male estate is far higher). Inevitably, therefore our focus was on the latter and therefore this book is important in that it goes some way to redressing the balance.
Tammi Walker and Graham Towl have identified over 100 women and adolescent girls who have taken their own lives in prison. Significantly, their wider review of more than 2,000 cases finds that patterns of suicidality are different for women and men. For example, the risk of suicide rises with age amongst men, but decreases amongst women. The danger is that the fact that there are so many more men in prison than there are women and that the absolute number of male suicides is so much greater will mask these different patterns. Any consideration of an overall average will mean that the male pattern will prevail, and issues specific to women and adolescent girls will be lost.
But it is too easy to get lost in the statistics. Every one of the self-inflicted deaths identified in this book or that we considered in our inquiry was someone’s son or daughter, sister or brother, partner or even parent. What is more each self-inflicted death in prison represents a failure by the State to protect the prisoners concerned; each is a failure to comply with Article 2 of the European Convention On Human Rights.
The failure of the State is all the greater because in our work it was apparent that the same criticisms of prison regimes, systems and protocols had been repeated time and time again. Lessons had not been learned and not enough had been done to bring about substantive change.
One cannot help but feel that this is because as a society we value the lives of those in custody less than those at liberty. We need to recover what Winston Churchill, as Home Secretary (and therefore then responsible for the prison system), described in the House of Commons in 1910 as ‘an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if only you can find it, in the heart of ever