‘Basic lack of decency’ stimulate self -harm in the prisons of women, says Report | Women

Women in prison resort to self -damage due to “amazing gaps” in basic services, including strict time limits in contacting their children and forbidden to use washing machines for dirty underwear, according to the report of a watchdog.

An overview of women in prisons in England showed that “the frustration of daily life” and a “lack of basic care” are many to hurt themselves.

Female perpetrators had difficulty keeping in touch with loved ones with a third party who did not receive face -to -face visits at all, said a report from HM Inspector of Prisons.

A “fundamental lack of decency” worsened these challenges, found inspectors. Women received poorly fitting clothes from prison spending, while “a bizarre rule” prevented them from laundering underwear in a washing machine.

Charlie Taylor, the Chief Inspector, said: “Disappointingly, this report emphasizes a lack of basic care to help women to go day after day, which for some people than a cause of self -harm.”

There are more than 3,600 female prisoners in England, held in 12 prisons. More than half children under the age of 18 have.

In three of the four prisons investigated, about a third of women were more than 50 miles from home and in one of the locations it was more than half of the women.

None of the prisons provided transport to and from nearby train or bus stations. Inspectors said that the families of the prisoners were often unable to afford expensive taxisals to go to prisons and often attended “short, unburious” visit sessions.

Safe video calls were available on all four sites, but the women were often frustrated by a limit of one call per month.

“The calls were not used creatively to support women, for example to enable them to read a story to their child before bedtime, or to facilitate the presence on the parents’ evenings,” the report said.

It discovered that at some point, 84% of women felt unable to prison and that the needs of women in prison surpass the capacities of prison staff and their environment.

None of the prisons allowed women to wash their underwear in a washing machine and instead they had to wash it by hand in a small bowl in their cell, a policy that was not found in the prisons of men.

A perpetrator said to the inspectors: “I was all my socks and underwear in the same bowl, but you only get one bowl and in a weekend you get your razor. So you have to do everything [referring to shaving, washing up and cleaning underwear] In the same bowl … it is unsanitary. “

Another woman described with just one pair of knickers. She was forced to wash them every night for months, because no spare pairs were available, according to the report.

Women, especially those who had been in custody, often arrived with few assets and trusted what the prison could offer.

In one prison there was no footwear available in sizes four to six, the most common sizes for women, the report continued.

“It was amazing to discover that most sites do not issue prison clothing that was designed for women,” said inspectors.

About the prisons of women, the self-harm percentage 5,785 incidents per 1,000 prisoners, who was more than eight times higher than in the prisons of Men-664 incidents per 1,000 prisoners.

In one Interview with The Guardian Last month, the prison minister, Lord Timeson, said that the government was planning to turn the increase in the number of women to prison. Instead, hundreds of female perpetrators could be tagged and sent to addiction and rehabilitation centers, he said.

Shabana Mahmood, the Minister of Justice, said that the report was ‘shocking’ and ‘a wake-up call’ for her department.

“We have to do things differently, so – as part of our plan for change to make our streets safer – we have launched a new Women’s Justice Board to reduce the number of women in prison and to better support them that still have to be locked up. “