Inquiry after prisoner found dead
An inquiry has been launched after a 39-year-old man was found hanged in his cell at Lincoln Prison.
Paramedics were called to the scene on Friday morning but the prisoner, named as Paul Murphy, was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.
He was jailed in August last year after breaching a licence granting his early release from a previous sentence.
The Prison Service has confirmed that Murphy had been identified as being at risk of suicide.
He had already served three years and five months in prison for burglary.
A spokesman for the Prison Service said their sympathies were with the 39-year-old's family.
I suspect that the inquiry will find that he took his own life. I don't think there is very much the Prison Service can do once it has identified a suicidal risk prisoner. If that person is determined enough they will find a way to end it all.
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
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3 comments:
oh, I don't know. There's always the empty concrete wet cell, accompanied with four-point restraints. I'm not advocating that as an appropriate suicide prevention policy, but it can be effective...
Sometimes I think the prevention can be worse than the cure.
The tragedy here is that this chap had been released then slipped up somehow and been sent back to jail. Then, since recall last August, he'd been trapped waiting for the system to release him again. I know of a similar case where someone has served 7 months (so far) for being only 7 minutes late for curfew. A harsh penalty for such a minor transgression. The person I know still has no release date and is struggling to cope with the uncertainty of it all. The unknown is a hard thing to bear and the Probation Service has no tolerance for mistakes, "circumstances beyond an individual's control" or "misunderstandings" nor does it appear to leave any room for appeal or legitimate excuses in recall cases. I think it likely that this ongoing uncertainty with no light at the end of the tunnel is contributory to the suicide of this victim (bear in mind he'd already survived his original stretch of three and a bit years). Therefore, arguably, this case could be seen as a form of institutional, but perfectly legal, manslaughter so I feel very sorry for all affected by the loss of this life.
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