Source: The Scotsman, Edinburgh, UK (http://www.scotsman.com)
Contact: Letters_ts@scotsman.com

Failure to act on drug threat blamed for spate of jail deaths
Barlinnie highlighted as place where spate of suicides has followed a
failure to act on addiction
JENNY BOOTH Home Affairs Correspondent

SCOTTISH prisons are in the grip of an unprecedented upsurge of drugs
related violence and suicide.

And today the chief inspector of prisons, Clive Fairweather, is to call
for the appointment of a "drugs tsar" to tackle the spiralling problem
in Scottish jails.

Serious assaults among prisoners have risen to a record 127 incidents
more than double the prison service's government target of 60, and up by
20 per cent on last year's total of 108.

And the number of suicides in jail may have more than doubled in the
past 12 months, to an alleged 17 last year (provisional on the outcome
of fatal accident inquiries), from eight in 1995/96. In the previous
decade there were only 75 prison suicides in Scotland.

The Howard League for Penal Reform has condemned the toll of violence
and death as "totally unacceptable".

"It is time the authorities did something quickly to cope with the
problem," said Fran Russell, a Howard League spokeswoman. "It is not a
new problem, but the authorities have clearly failed to act."

Only three of the deaths were in Cornton Vale, the women's prison where
a tragic suicide cluster has received wide publicity. All three deaths
are now the subject of an FAI.

The remaining 14 presumed suicides occurred in Barlinnie, Scotland's
largest prison, where five people have killed themselves; Greenock
prison, only onefifth of the size of Barlinnie, where four inmates have
died by their own hand; and tiny Aberdeen and troubled Perth jails, each
suffering two deaths.

The sombre figures are due to be set out in the Inspector of Prisons'
annual report, to be published today.

The rising tide of violence reflects what is happening in society, as
drugs barons and violent criminals continue their feuds behind bars.
Until recently Perth Prison, which holds some Paisley inmates, has been
particularly badly affected.

But it is understood that the chief inspector of prisons, Mr
Fairweather, will also place much of the blame for the suicides on some
prisons' failure to cope with the rising numbers of shortterm inmates
who arrive addicted to Class A drugs.

Edinburgh's Saughton prison, which like Barlinnie is 50 per cent
overcrowded and has a very high throughput of shortterm prisoners, has
had no suicides since 1994.

A major difference between the two prisons is that Saughton has had a
pioneering drugs rehabilitation policy, with a detoxification centre and
fulltime drugs and HIV workers.

Prison doctors also prescribe methadone, the powerful opiate used to
wean addicts away from heroin, and there is a "Listeners" scheme where
the Samaritans train the older prisoners how to counsel troubled
inmates.

Glenochil prison, which is notorious for its drug problems, also has a
vigorous rehabilitation programme and until this April had not had a
suicide for nine years.

By comparison, Barlinnie has been slow to act on the link between
addiction and suicide, and is still getting its antidrugs provision off
the ground.

The prison has become Scottish prisons' suicide blackspot, with 27 of
the 75 deaths in Scottish prisons in 198696 occurring in Barlinnie, as
well as the five in 1996/7.

Tiny, overcrowded Aberdeen prison had only had two suicides in the
decade up to last year. The jail is thought to have been affected by the
huge rise in the amount of drugs circulating in Grampian, as southern
drug dealers have started to target the region.

Mr Fairweather is understood to be calling for a drugs tsar to co
ordinate the current patchy response to the crisis.

It is understood that remand prisoners those as yet unconvicted of
crime, or convicted but awaiting sentence account for an unusually
high number of suicides, 12 of last year's 17 deaths.

Such inmates are usually only in prison for short periods, often leaving
no time for their medical notes to arrive from their own GPs detailing
their drugs problems and treatment.

Remand prisoners are not expected to work, and due to the pressures of
overcrowding may spend most of the time locked in their cells
experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms from drugs.

A report on prison suicides published two weeks ago by Dr Kevin Power, a
Stirling University clinical psychologist, said that the suicide
prevention strategy of locking distressed prisoners alone and halfnaked
in a bare concrete cube might also make them more likely to kill
themselves and to lie about their mental state.

Commenting on Dr Power's report, Mr Fairweather said: "Prisoners' lives
are disappearing down the cracks between the prison rules and
regulations, and prison staff's lack of imagination."

Ms Russell called for the end of the use of isolation cells for suicidal
prisoners.

"It is amazing and barbaric that they are still being used."