UK : why are prison suicides still increasing?

When Carl tried to kill himself in prison, he says he was angling for a quick escape – he thought about spending years with a rock hammer digging a tunnel, Shawshank-style, but ultimately decided that he couldn’t face the commitment. He waited for his 9AM check, and knew from six years of prison experience that no one would be back again until 10AM. His cellmate had an English class on a Wednesday morning, so he had an hour to himself.

At 9.15AM, he took a mix of prescription pills that he’d been buying and trading with other inmates in the weeks before.

Carl tells his story now calmly and with humour. He didn’t take enough of the medication to kill himself, but he did spend a night in healthcare where he woke up later that evening, knowing that he would be serving the remainder of his long sentence.

“*I’d been to see the prison doctor a few times and told him how I’d been feeling,” says Carl. “He’d give me a form to fill in – you know the kind, tick boxes, rate your own mental fragility on a scale of one to ten, that kind of thing – then he’d hand it back, and tell me I wasn’t depressed or psychotic or anxious enough for medication. Even after the overdose, there was no counselling, no group therapy, no medication. No nothing. It takes a lot for a reasonable man to consider suicide a viable option.*”

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