If I went back to jail, I would refuse to share a prison cell | Eric Allison

An acute shortage of secure psychological overall health beds signifies inmates are held in unsuitable prison segregation units. Photograph: Simon Value/Alamy

When I was performing time, I received on well with the vast vast majority of my fellow prisoners we had been all in the very same boat and there is power in unity. Even when forced to share a cell, I produced the best of sharing a room designed for a single with a stranger for up to 23 hours a day.

Nonetheless, in the unlikely event of my getting imprisoned yet again, I would refuse point blank to enter a shared cell.

Why? Statistically, it would be a lot more likely than not that the particular person I was being asked to share with, would have considerable mental overall health issues. In some situations, dangerously so.

In March 2000, at Feltham Younger Offenders Institution, 19-year-previous Zahid Mubarek, was murdered by his cellmate, who had a significant character disorder. Of the 18 resolved prison homicides because then, above half had been committed in shared cells, by individuals suffering serious mental well being troubles who need to not have been confined with anybody.

My thoughts has focused on this concern for the final 18 months, as I’ve been sitting on a commission set up to examine what has changed on psychological overall health in the criminal justice method (CJS) because the Bradley report five years in the past. Headed by labour peer, Keith Bradley, it found offenders with psychological wellness problems have been failed by policing, courts and prisons and manufactured 82 recommendations.

The overview of the progress made is yet again headed by Lord Bradley. It has heard proof from a wide selection of specialists doing work in the area, along with people who had been by way of the program, and made a new report. In a nutshell: there are distinct indications of improvement in some areas because 2009, with evidence of effective early interventions to prevent young children from coming into the CJS. 6 pilot programmes, aimed at diverting young people with behavioural problems away from the CJS, were efficiently completed in 2010/11 and a national working model is being embedded. There are, nevertheless, fears that the nationwide programme has an grownup bias and requirements a lot more people with an knowing of younger people’s requirements. And there is constantly the danger of funding cuts. But it is progress.

And some police forces, Leicestershire and the Met in certain, are showing important improvement in their dealing with of people with psychological overall health problems. Police minister Damian Green backed moves earlier this yr to place psychological wellness nurses in 50 police stations across the United kingdom, as portion of the liaison programme recommended by Bradley. The aim is to roll this out nationally, with the NHS taking above when contracts expire.

But in my region of knowledge, prisons, there is no such positivity. The psychological health situation in jails is worse than ever. Apart from the increase in prison murders and self-harm amid male prisoners, my intray bulges with horror stories. A snapshot: an inmate in Dovegate prison, in Staffordshire, was informed the only way to ensure being seen by a mental overall health nurse was to self-harm. So he did.

And in 2011, a prisoner in the shut supervision centre at Woodhill jail, in Buckinghamshire, sliced the two ears off in two separate incidents. The guy is nonetheless becoming held in a segregation unit, alternatively of a secure psychological wellness bed. There is an acute shortage of this kind of beds. Only three hospitals, Broadmoor, Rampton and Ashworth take higher-chance people from prison. Sufferers will not leave these locations in a hurry so dozens of prisoners with serious mental overall health difficulties are held rather in segregation units, treated as handle issues rather than the seriously sick people they are.

The prison services has to get individuals the courts send them, irrespective of their mental state. But this mistreatment of prisoners with psychological health difficulties must shame us all. Politicians and senior managers should admit the problem and deal with it.

If I went back to jail, I would refuse to share a prison cell | Eric Allison