Focus: Women in prison

There is an epidemic of suicide and self-harm. Too many are behind bars. In this special report, Sophie Goodchild talks to the Chief Inspector of Prisons and former inmates

When Rebecca Smith was found dead on the afternoon of 1 June with a plastic bag tied around her head with one of her shoelaces she became the ninth and most recent of female prisoners to kill themselves this year in a women's jail. Staff at Buckley Hall jail in Greater Manchester had put the mother of two in a single cell despite her long history of mental illness. And it was in this cell, alone and desperate, that the 40-year-old suffocated herself.

When Rebecca Smith was found dead on the afternoon of 1 June with a plastic bag tied around her head with one of her shoelaces she became the ninth and most recent of female prisoners to kill themselves this year in a women's jail. Staff at Buckley Hall jail in Greater Manchester had put the mother of two in a single cell despite her long history of mental illness. And it was in this cell, alone and desperate, that the 40-year-old suffocated herself.

With suicide and self-harm at epidemic levels, the Prison Service faces a crisis over how it can ensure the safety of highly vulnerable female prisoners. There has been a doubling in the female prison population over the past decade to 4,516 inmates, prompted by a rise in women committing drugs offences combined with increasingly zealous sentencing.

Increasing numbers of women are also being locked up for petty offences, such as shoplifting, instead of receiving fines or community sentences. Prison reformers say that the system is failing women, a fact highlighted in a damning report published yesterday by Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons. Her report into conditions at Styal prison, in Cheshire, where six women killed themselves last year, revealed a series of flaws.

During an unannounced visit to Styal in January, Ms Owers discovered self-harming prisoners languishing in punishment cells - against the prison rules - and in one case an inmate who had been punished because she had tried to hang herself. Women were spending 19 hours each day in their cells.

The majority of women in prison are there for non-violent, drug-related offences. Styal jail has introduced a methadone treatment programme for heroin-addicted prisoners but Ms Owers said the arrangements were rushed through and badly thought out.

The exposure of failings at Styal comes less than three weeks after the Home Office announced it was closing Durham prison, the country's only maximum security jail for women, after a spate of suicides and self-harm and a critical inspection report that said the jail was "restricted, oppressive and claustrophobic". Ms Owers told The Independent on Sunday that an urgent review was needed on alternatives to prison, especially for the 80 per cent of inmates with mental health problems.

Styal has its own psychiatric unit, which has done much to help mentally ill women. But Ms Owers said this facility could encourage judges to send women to prison in the belief they would get treatment. "I think it's clear to us that in many cases they shouldn't be [in prison]," said Ms Owers. "They should be in some other secure accommodation which is therapeutic. The danger of creating [psychiatric] units within prisons is that you make sentencers content to send severely mentally ill women to prison."

Women are now 14 times more likely to self-harm in prison than men and more than twice as likely to kill themselves.

Ms Owers said the needs of women should be examined to discover the roots of their behaviour.

The Government says the opening of two new women's jails, one in Middlesex and another in Peterborough, will mean female inmates are being provided with facilities tailored to their needs. However, Ms Owers believes that smaller, specialist units nearer to inmates' homes and families would be more beneficial. "It [has been] a response to an immediate crisis - we don't have enough beds for women - but it has moved us away from thinking about smaller units closer to home. We must not forget that vision."

Those women who have experienced life in Britain's prison system say urgent changes are needed.

One former inmate, Sarah (not her real name), spent 18 months in Styal prison after being convicted of fraud. Now aged 52, she says that the stigma of being in prison will never be erased for her. "I was given a cell with a mattress stained with blood and was told to just turn it over," said Sarah, who has four children. "More women will take their own lives unless something is done."

'You can't reason with them. You're a con, so you lie'

Sandra Gregory, 39, was caught trying to smuggle heroin from Thailand back to the UK. In 1992 she was sentenced to death, but this was commuted to 25 years. She spent four and a half years in the notorious Lard Yao prison, dubbed the 'Bangkok Hilton'. She was transferred home and served three and a half years in four English prisons - Holloway, Foston Hall in Derby, Durham and Cookham Wood in Kent. She was released in 2000 after being pardoned by the King of Thailand.

"In Thailand, you have a certain amount of control over your own life. In this country, you have no control over any aspect. People talk about the juvenile behaviour you get in prisons, but inmates revert back to childhood because they are told what to do and when to do it.

"You can't reason with the authorities. The level of suspicion is high all the time. I wasn't ever up to anything, but that wasn't how the authorities construed it. They think you lie - you're a con so you lie.

"Everything is written down and monitored. And it's all done by people not qualified to do this. It takes three months training to be a prison officer. These people aren't in the best position to take care of women who are this vulnerable."

"The system has been proven not to work, but it's very hard to change because what the general public want is retribution. Anyone who talks about alternatives to prison is seen as a bleeding-heart liberal.

"There is a way to treat people and a way not to treat people - and this is a way not to. It's just not working."

'Jail is about screwing with your head. It's not about rehabilitation'

Penny Mellor, a mother of eight, was jailed in 2002 for two years for helping in the abduction of a young girl to keep her away from social services. Ms Mellor, a child welfare campaigner in the West Midlands, denied the charge of conspiracy to abduct a child. She served eight months in Low Newton in Durham and Drake Hall in Staffordshire.

"I was breast-feeding my seven-month-old baby when I was sent to prison, but they wouldn't transfer me near my family. I didn't see my son for six weeks. I lost that bond when I came out - he didn't know who I was.

"Prison is a psychiatric unit. Many of the female inmates have children so they have two sets of problems to deal with. Not only have they just been jailed, but they've just lost their children.

"The mental health problems are horrendous. There are women who've been on drugs since they were 12, been raped, lived on the streets. They have no self-worth. Many women had been sexually abused - they were HIV positive or had hepatitis C. There is a lot of self-harming - people with scars down their legs, arms, stomach.

"Periods all get cyclical. The whole wing has got PMT at the same time - it causes major, major problems.

"When I was at Drake Hall there was so much heroin in that prison I could see women of my age in for minor offences taking drugs because they just couldn't take it. These were women who had never been near a drug in their life.

"Prison is about screwing with your head. It's not about rehabilitation - it's about kicking you when you're down. It's a systems failure and nobody really cares - the public certainly doesn't care."

'All the time that I was there I was watching my back'

Angela Cannings, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, was sentenced to life imprisonment in April 2002 for the murder of her two sons - seven-week-old Jason in 1991, and 18-week-old Matthew in 1999. Ms Cannings, 40, maintained her children died of cot death and last December the Court of Appeal overturned the conviction. She spent 18 months at Eastwood Park in Gloucester, Durham, and Bullwood Hall in Essex.

"The cells in Eastwood Park were very close together so at night I could hear people shouting out 'child killer'.

"The other inmates were very good once they got to know me. Obviously, I was telling them what had happened. I was put in the workshop doing piecework - things like putting nailfiles into packs of ten, putting leaflets into polythene bags for charities.

"When I was transferred to Durham I was in a right state. It was an absolute nightmare. It was a very harsh, hard environment. Even prison officers were very cold. Every two or three nights there would be fights. All the time I was there I was watching my back. I was absolutely petrified and feared for my life, but I'd completely lost it by then, and didn't have the strength to keep looking behind my back.

"Two days after I was moved to Bullwood Hall a girl threw a cup of boiling hot coffee over my chest. I was in the health care wing for 14 days - I had extensive burns on my chest. The inmates who did the attack were shipped out the next day. When I came back to the lifer wing they all rallied round me - they really looked out for me after that."

'I had to harden up. Because if you're a hard con, you survive. Otherwise you sink'

Ruth Wyner, 54, was convicted in December 1999 for allowing heroin to be supplied in the homeless day centre she ran in Cambridge with John Brock - a charge she strenuously denied. Ms Wyner was sentenced to five years, but it was reduced to 14 months on appeal, of which she served seven. She spent her first week in Holloway, north London, before being moved to Highpoint prison in Suffolk.

"I was totally traumatised. I had waves of tears. I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, I even started smoking. The other women said they went through exactly the same when they came in.

"Prison is a very frightening place. I got moved up to a convicted wing and everyone seemed so tough. I had to harden up, because if you're a hard con you survive. That's what you have to do, otherwise you sink.

"I had to share a cell with three other people. I had no privacy. You are in a very strange environment. You don't know anybody.

"All through the seven months I was absolutely desolate. It's not just your own unhappiness - you are surrounded by a tremendous amount of pain and despair. It's always there. I was quite shocked that people who were that damaged were in prison. Most of them had been through awful experiences outside.

"I was shocked that we were doing this. The prison regime wasn't going to make them more fitted for life. It would make them more damaged. It's pointless for the women themselves and it's pointless for society.

"It took me a long time to get over prison - I probably won't ever get over it. I'm lucky - I have very supportive family and friends."

'As soon as I was out the gates I tried to score'

Julie, 44, from Sheffield, was sent to New Hall prison in West Yorkshire in 2000 for allowing her flat to be used for the sale of heroin. Seven months into her 18-month sentence, Julie was released under the tagging scheme. She was arrested for possession and supply of heroin, and was in remand for five months, undertaking a Drug Treatment and Testing Order (DTTO). She has signed up to a 12-month drug rehabilitation programme run by Phoenix House

"The officers could be very sarcastic. They'd say 'get back in your kennel' and things like that. They were there to do their job.

"When I was out it was straight back to drugs. Soon as I was out of the gate I was looking to score. I didn't get no help in there. I put my name down for drug counselling but I didn't get any - they just wrote my name down in a book. They should've done more for me.

"I've completed my DTTO and used that to get to Phoenix. I've been on drugs for over 30 years. I asked for this. It was my choice to come here. I do want to do this. I've got a daughter - she's 26 and she's glad that I'm here. I missed her wedding because I was inside so I want to put it right."

Interviews by Steve Bloomfield