Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the conclusion of the Prison and Probation Ombudsman in the bulletin published on 28 March that there has been a "lack of concerted and sustained action" to deal with the rise in the number of suicides by female prisoners, what steps they have taken to implement recommendations made in the Corston Report published in 2007, and since, to address that.
Answered on
7 April 2017
The rise in the level of self-inflicted deaths is complex and there is no simple solution. We are committed to driving improvement across the system to bring the rate down by increasing the support available to vulnerable offenders during the first 24 hours in custody. We have invested more in mental health training for prison officers and are delivering a suicide and self-harm reduction project to address the rise in self-inflicted deaths and self-harm in female prisons. This year, we will publish a strategy for female offenders that will focus on how we improve outcomes for female offenders in the community as well as in custody.