Care leavers are over-represented within the justice system. HTWE | Shutterstock
Within the yr to June 2021, for each 1,000 girls in custody in England and Wales, 3,808 incidents of self-harm had been recorded. This represented a stunning enhance of 16% on the earlier yr. Between March 2007 and March 2018, 37 girls in jail took their very own lives.
Proof means that the hyperlink between self-harm and suicide is stronger in prisons than within the wider group. For a current examine we carried out interviews with 37 girls in three closed prisons in England between September 2019 and February 2020. A key intention of our analysis was to amplify girls’s voices. Self-harm was not a problem we had got down to discover on this examine, however it was a subject that many nonetheless selected to share.
Our findings present that having prior expertise of residing in care can present essential context for understanding why some girls in jail would possibly self-harm. All the ladies we spoke with had expertise of the care system earlier than going to jail. Self-harm was raised as a key problem by some.
Unmet wants
Girls who’ve been via the care system are over-represented in prisons in England. Whereas there are challenges in acquiring correct knowledge, estimates counsel that 31% of feminine prisoners (in comparison with 24% of imprisoned males) frolicked within the care of the state as kids.
That is, in fact, not inevitable. Many care leavers go on to do very properly when appropriately supported. However a major minority do come into contact with the justice system, with difficult behaviour corresponding to minor injury to property nonetheless extra more likely to be criminalised in some care settings than for these residing at dwelling with their start households. That is usually compounded by the stigma hooked up to being in care. Damaging attitudes assume some care leavers will inevitably be troublesome.
Lots of the girls we interviewed described backgrounds of abuse and neglect and being taken into care for his or her welfare and safety. As one interviewee, Mandy, defined:
I used to be a traumatic youngster … very, very uncontrolled … I didn’t know the best way to ask for assist. As a result of within the care system I used to be by no means proven all that.
For some, self-harm grew to become a means of speaking their trauma. A number of described harming themselves as a means of assuaging psychological ache. In essentially the most extreme instances, for these girls who tried to take their very own lives, it grew to become an try to finish that ache.
Girls describe having problem accessing psychological well being assist and drugs when arriving in jail.
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Systemic failure
There was an inclination for analysis to deal with the private elements which may lead a person to self-harm. Analysis on the sociology of punishment, nevertheless, has highlighted how self-injury could also be linked to the painful experiences of imprisonment for some girls, corresponding to separation from family members.
Our personal analysis attracts consideration to what’s missing within the techniques designed to assist these girls. Girls described delays in accessing remedy on entry to jail and in acquiring psychological well being appointments, amongst different challenges. Not feeling listened to in care was a typical theme usually repeated in jail. As Leanne put it:
There’s a number of self-harm on this jail, loads. As a result of they don’t really feel heard … they don’t get handled in the best method. They simply get locked away and … labelled.
For some, experiences of the jail system echoed experiences the ladies described from their time in care, which was usually characterised by instability and a scarcity of assist. Their psychological well being wants went unmet – they had been often moved from placement to placement.
For girls who had been beforehand within the care of the state as kids, entry to psychological well being assist is essential, as is ensuring that those that go away care usually are not deserted. Extra broadly, our findings elevate severe questions on how we, as a society, use imprisonment as a punitive measure for these girls.
Whereas there are ongoing efforts to establish and enhance the assist obtainable to those that have gone from care to jail, analysis additionally reveals the potential of group sentences, corresponding to deferred prosecution schemes, to be credible, cost-effective alternate options to custody that keep away from the trauma of imprisonment. Even higher, nevertheless, is to make sure that kids in care obtain all of the assist they want. This is able to assist to forestall those that have been in care from being unnecessarily criminalised within the first place.
All names have been modified to guard the id of the individuals. If you’re affected by any of the problems on this piece, please take into account speaking to somebody. The Samaritans helpline – 116 123 – is out there 24 hours a day.
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The examine on which this piece relies was carried out with Dr Katie Hunter (Lancaster College), Dr Julie Shaw (Liverpool John Moores College) and Dr Jo Staines (College of Bristol). This analysis was funded by the Nuffield Basis, however the views expressed are these of the authors and never essentially the Basis. Go to www.nuffieldfoundation.org