peripathetic

Shipman suicide: fallout
I've been reading the Guardian with interest this morning, as comment is made on the issue of whole-life sentences and suicide risk. Stephen Shaw, the prisons ombudsman, who has been given the task of investigating the issues surrounding Shipman's death, said that putting potentially suicidal prisoners on 24-hour surveillance is 'inhumane'.

The Prison Service itself thinks that there's no foundation to the suggestion that it's more difficult to keep prisoners safe who have no hope of release. Under UK Home Secretary David Blunkett's 'life means life' laws, enshrined in last year's Criminal Justice Act, multiple killers will never leave prison. Calls have been made to put all 'lifers' on 24-hour surveillance.

In addition, however, to Stephen Shaw's judgement that such measures would be inhumane, there aren't enough staff to do this in the first place. When Ian Huntley was transferred to prison, a 24-hour watch could not be made without using inexperinced staff. So there's no safety for the prisoner in that approach either. Other measures include the removal of window bars - places where a noose may be fastened - or different material for bed sheets so they can't be torn into strips.

Isn't all this missing the point though? The victims' relatives feel cheated that he has taken his own life while the prisons service scrabbles around in consternation, trying to figure out what to do next. "He's found a way out for himself... to admit his guilt he would have had to take on the enormity of what he had done... He has controlled us all the way through and he has controlled the last step and I hate him for it," lament the relatives. And I don't argue with their feelings.

But the collective lust to find out "why" any murderer kills - what would that give them? One thing only, I think. More pain. I ask again: what is the point of a whole-life sentence? What is the point of depriving a murderer of the opportunity to kill themselves if they wish to? To 'face up to what they've done' or 'to punish them' or 'to make sure they won't do it again'? The first reason is woolly. A person who murders might not, psychologically speaking, ever be able to 'face up to it' in the way we want them to. The second reason is inhumane, and punishment for the sake of punishment alone is unlawful, unless it is done in tandem with the third: to 'rehabilitate' the (probably unhinged) prisoner in some way. But what's the point of 'rehab' for someone who's never leaving jail in the first place? Well? How *can* there be a point - unless the point is the punishment is the point is the punishment.....?

Patrick yesterday commented here, and said that the point is simply to ensure that the prisoner serves their sentence - that's why you have suicide watch, bars, lock on the doors, prisons... OK. Fair enough on the logic of why we have prisons. But if the worst prisoners' treatment and sentencing is so haphazard and thinly thought-out, cracks will appear and sooner or later people will notice them. Today we're starting to notice.