Scots prison scandal as more than 40 inmates die in jail over last year
dailyrecord.co.ukMore than 40 inmates died in Scottish prisons last year leading to renewed calls for urgent action to cut the number dying behind bars.
The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) revealed there were 42 deaths in 2022, with suicide and drugs deaths on the rise.Figures are not yet available to confirm how many deaths involved prisoners taking their own lives but, between January and August, the deaths of 12 inmates were given as suicides.It follows a report by researchers at Glasgow University who found more deaths in prison over the past three years than in any other three-year period on record.
The 'Still Nothing To See Here' report said 121 people died between January 2020 and September 2022 compared to 98 from 2017-19 and 76 from 2014-16.
They said Covid was not the main cause of the increase in that period.There have been at least 29 deaths by suicide and 25 from drugs since the start of 2020, with a further eight whose causes remain undetermined.The report said that since the SPS introduced its “Talk To Me” suicide prevention strategy in 2016, suicides had actually gone up by 42 per cent, with researchers saying they compiled the report because “no Government body is doing so”.Suicide and drug-related deaths, it said, were the “driving forces in rising levels of death”.
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