The idea of ‘welfare’ has lost all meaning. Just look at the cruel state of women’s prisons | Zoe Williams
A new report says there’s a ‘basic lack of decency’ in England’s jails. It’s a motif repeated across a nation stripped to the boneOne of the fundamentals of modern jail craft is the idea that it’s hard to convince prisoners that you care about their welfare if they’re living in squalid conditions. This has been understood for years, with fluctuating amounts of buy-in from politicians about how important it was to offender management that inmates felt cared about.Self-harm, meanwhile, has long been an issue of concern. I remember, in the 1990s and 2000s, detailed conversations with prison psychologists about why women’s prisons had disproportionate amounts of it: one idea, which I always found the most convincing, was that women, where they had children, were almost always the main carer, so were in a state of constant anxiety about who was looking after them. Another theory was that psychological interventions such as anger management courses had been devised for male prisoners; women responded differently to the discovery that they could have controlled their anger – by blaming themselves. That was also plausible.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnistIn the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...
A new report says there’s a ‘basic lack of decency’ in England’s jails. It’s a motif repeated across a nation stripped to the bone
One of the fundamentals of modern jail craft is the idea that it’s hard to convince prisoners that you care about their welfare if they’re living in squalid conditions. This has been understood for years, with fluctuating amounts of buy-in from politicians about how important it was to offender management that inmates felt cared about.
Self-harm, meanwhile, has long been an issue of concern. I remember, in the 1990s and 2000s, detailed conversations with prison psychologists about why women’s prisons had disproportionate amounts of it: one idea, which I always found the most convincing, was that women, where they had children, were almost always the main carer, so were in a state of constant anxiety about who was looking after them. Another theory was that psychological interventions such as anger management courses had been devised for male prisoners; women responded differently to the discovery that they could have controlled their anger – by blaming themselves. That was also plausible.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...
