Licence to Kill…. (or suicide on HMP licence)

My very best friend in the world tried to kill herself on Monday

This wasn’t a cry for help or attention seeking; she didn’t tell anyone. She just calmly and quietly took a huge overdose of amitriptyline. If you google this drug you will see it is commonly referred to on suicide websites as a fool proof method…

By pure luck, or maybe divine intervention, I decided to phone her as she had sent a text that evening that just seemed odd. When I called she was already pretty incoherent and very out of breath. As she also has AF (a heart rhythm disorder associated with deadly and debilitating consequences including heart failure, stroke, poor mental health, reduced quality of life and death), hearing how breathless she was really made me panic. I then called 999 and managed to organise emergency services in Scotland to go to her rescue. She ended up in ICU on a ventilator. And thankfully she is still alive, still unhappy, but alive and hopefully moving forward.

Ok, so you may have guessed now that this is the same lady abandoned by probation, her MP, the prison service, the judicial system up in Scotland on her own.

She told them over and over and over about her poor mental health. This is a strong capable woman who has never been suicidal or suffered such severe depression. Even throughout her 5 years in prison she had never felt as hopeless and isolated as she does now, left to rot in homeless accommodation 500 miles away from her support network. She told her probation officer, she told the housing people, she told a local GP….. but nobody really cared. By Monday evening, four weeks on from being forced back to Scotland, she could not see any future and decided she could not wake up again to another day abandoned, isolated, jobless and homeless.

There has been some interesting research done on suicides amongst newly released prisoners. http://community.nicic.gov/blogs/mentalhealth/archive/2012/07/16/suicide-risk-factors-among-recently-released-prisoners.aspx

In my opinion, after release from prison your life should be getting better! However, everything is put in the way to make life harder. Getting a job is often impossible as employers cannot see beyond that tick box for an unspent conviction; housing departments often label people released from prison as intentionally homeless therefore removing the possibility of secure housing; benefits are slow to be paid and nothing is given for the first 7 days after release; family are often angry or hurt and may not support the ex-offender…..

So much more work needs to be put into supporting ex-prisoners, especially in the weeks before release so that the situation that has happened with my friend in Scotland can never happen again. The sentence meted by society has been served and we must see these people as members of our society who are equally entitled to help and support in all areas. Probation departments need to stop addressing “protecting the public and reducing reoffending” in such an uncaring and unhelpful way. The best way to reduce risk and reoffending is to ensure a good quality of life for released prisoners with ongoing support to secure housing, employment and a future.