In a society that claims to champion women’s rights and well-being, a disturbing truth lurks behind the walls of Britain’s prisons. Despite progress in many areas, the criminal justice system continues to fail some of the most vulnerable members of the female population – those struggling with severe mental illness. Rather than receiving the psychiatric treatment they desperately need, these women are being locked away in horrific conditions under the guise of keeping them “safe”. But as suicide rates soar and tales of neglect emerge, it begs the question: are prisons really any place for a woman in crisis?
A Victorian Nightmare in Modern Times
The notion of using prisons as de facto mental institutions may seem like a relic of the past, conjuring images of 19th century asylums where “hysterical” or defiant women were committed by their husbands. Sadly, this practice is alive and well in modern Britain. Due to a critical shortage of psychiatric hospital beds, police are increasingly bringing mentally ill women to prisons as “places of safety”. There, they languish for months or even years without proper care, often in isolated cells.
They have repeatedly blocked their own airways with bedding, removed teeth or maimed themselves to the point of exposing their own intestines.
– HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor, describing the conditions for mentally ill women in prisons
The Tragic Case of Annelise Sanderson
Consider 18-year-old Annelise Sanderson, who stole a pair of trainers while in the depths of crisis. After pouring petrol on herself upon arrest, she was sentenced to 12 months in HMP Styal instead of a hospital. Styal is an aging former orphanage that has seen more suicides than any other women’s jail in England. Another prisoner described it as “no place for a vulnerable young woman”. Deprived of proper treatment, Annelise took her own life. She became another statistic in a broken system.
Punished for Being Ill
Annelise’s story is tragically common. Prisons are simply not equipped to handle complex psychiatric needs, especially in female populations where self-harm and suicide attempts occur at alarmingly high rates. Yet the practice continues, with catastrophic results:
- Women represent 5% of the prison population but 19% of self-harm incidents
- Suicide rate for female prisoners is 20x higher than general population
- Most women in prison have trauma histories that go untreated
The inhumanity is staggering. Women have gone 10 days in soiled clothes, isolated to the point of maiming themselves out of sheer desperation. Those with autism and PTSD suffer immensely in the loud, chaotic environment. As the mother of one woman who died by suicide in prison said: “She was ill, not bad”. But the system fails to make this distinction, and treats mental anguish as a crime.
Prisons are Not ‘Places of Safety’
It’s long past time to end the barbaric practice of imprisoning mentally ill women and start treating them with compassion. Locking human beings in cages is not therapeutic – it’s a form of torture that worsens an already life-threatening condition.
Prisons are places of chaos and trauma where vulnerable people struggle to maintain their dignity, let alone sanity.
– Eva Wiseman, The Guardian
Britain desperately needs criminal justice reform that replaces incarceration with quality, accessible mental health treatment in the community. Plans to reduce the female prison population are a start, but only the beginning of the sweeping change required.
No civilized society should tolerate the abuse of its most defenseless citizens in the name of “safety” or punishment. For the women lost in the nightmare of Britain’s prisons, change can’t come soon enough. It’s up to all of us to raise our voices and demand an end to this stain on our national conscience. The cries of suffering grow louder each day from behind those bars – how much longer will we allow ourselves to ignore them?
