Killed by Britain's Prison's in 2004 ................Tina Bromley, 37, died HMP Edmunds Hill 4 January.........Harold Shipman, 57, died HMP Wakefield 13 January..........April Sherman, 27, died HMP Edmunds Hill 13 Jan.........Phillip Taylor, 32, died HMP Blakenhurst 14 January.........Philip Rustell, 19, died HMP Reading 17 January.........James Skelly, 18, died HMYOI Portland 17 January..........Craig Roach, 28, died HMP Exeter 18 January.........Vincent Palmer, 37 , died HMP Woodhill 22 January.........Kevin Murby, 47, died HMP Nottingham 23 January...........Stephen Chamber, 31, died HMP Preston 26 January..........Paul Pitts, 29, died HMP Stafford 2 February.........Terry Sawford, 23, died HMP Nottingham 4 February.........Ricky Sears, 42, died HMP Wandsworth 07 February.........Vincent Morgan, 42 , died HMP Gloucester 10 Feb.........Thomas Burns, 24 , died HMP Gloucester 15 February.........Daniel Tull, 56 , died HMP Ramby 16 February...........Sajjad Hussain, 20 , died HMYOI Lancaster Farms Feb...........Ian Deans, 35 , died HMP Holme House 20 February..........Fausal Zahid, 27, died HMP Canterbury 21 February..........Steve Martin, 47, died HMP Belmarsh 24 February...........Anthony Richards, 37, died HMP Gloucester 28 Feb..........Anwar Islam, 36, died HMP Long Lartin 28 February.........Brian Carter, 34, died HMP Shrewsbury 4 March...........Christopher Ollerenshaw, 22, HMP Leicester March...........Stanley Denyer, 47, died HMP Lewes 8 March..........Kingsley Llewellyn, 29, died HMP Norwich 14 March.........Brendon Smith, 28, died HMP Wymott 23 March.........Abidemi Folarin, 35, died HMP Brixton 25 March..........Shaun Brown, 34, died HMP Preston 27 March.........Sheena Kotecha, 22, died HMP Brockhill 3 April.........Stephen Lloyd, 25, died HMP Frankland 15 April.........Michael Minishull, 45, died HMP Liverpool 16 April..........Julie Hope, 35, died HMP Holloway 17 April.........Louise Davis, 32, died HMP New Hall 18 April.........Paige Tapp, 23, died HMP Send 18 April...........Gareth Myatt, 15, died while be restrained by three prison officers, Rainsbrook Child Prison, 19 April..........Lawrence Mellon, 43, died HMP Woodhill 28 April...........Sharon Miller, 45, died HMP Durham 8 May..........William Butterfield, 61, died HMP Shrewsbury 8 May.........Heather Wait, 28, died HMP Holloway 8 May..........Steven Green, 35, died HMP Leicester 15 May.........Spencer Smith, 30, died HMP Blakenhurst 18 May..........Nicholas Bailey, 59, died HMP Lewes 19 May...........William Hunter, 25, died HMP Durham 24 May..........David Harpe, 39, died HMP Lincoln 25 May.........Rebecca Smith, 40, died HMP Buckley Hall 1 June...........Mark Fulton, died Maghaberry Prison, 10 June..........Carl Baker, 36, died HMP Nottingham 11 June..........Stuart Horgan, 39, died HMP Woodhill 20 June...........Andrew Williams, 29, died HMP Manchester 21 June...........Andrew Elliott, 43, died HMP Manchester 23 June..........Paul Bartropp, 36, died HMP Pentonville 25 June..........Richard Webb, 33, died HMP Manchester 3 July...........Lyton Setterfield, 36, died HMP Highdown 7 July...........Edward Orr, 46, died HMP Liverpool 26 July.........Rebecca Turner, 22, HMP Low Newton 28 July...........Stephen Ram, 28, died HMP Blakenhurst 28 July.........Marie Walsh, 29, HMP New Hall 29 July..........Jason Cressey, 29, died HMP Wormwood 7 August.........Jamie Leigh, 27, died HMP Birmingham 8 August..........Jason Alldis, 33, died HMP Elmley 8 August.........Adam Rickwood, 14, Hassockfield Child Prison 9 August...........Brendan Flynn, 28, died HMP Wakefield 11 August...........Michael Briggs, 41, died HMP Leeds 12 August..........Robert Finch, 45, died HMP Exeter 14 August...........Lee Nottingham, 30, died HMP Shrewsbury 19 August...........Stephen Badaj, 39, died HMP Dartmoor 23 August.............Benjamin Gibson, 19, died HMP Norwich 25 August...........Steven Hush, 44, died HMP Acklington 26 August.............Richard Carter, 33, died HMP Leeds 26 August............Abdul Omar, 28, died HMP Wormwood Scrubs, August.............Stephen Woods, 23, died HMP Bullingdon 28 August...........Phillip Parvin, 30, died HMP Shrewsbury 31 August...........Mark Keeling, 31, died HMP Shrewsbury 1 September.............Shaun Hazelhurst, 28, died HMP Manchester 4 Sept...........Patrick Kilty, 32, died HMP Manchester 04 September.............Kenneth Morris, 50, died HMP Acklington 17 Sept............Anthony Dunne, 19, died HMP/YOI Rochester Sept.............Raymond Goodwin, 44, died HMP Norwich 27 Sept...........hah Rahman, 23, died HMP Brixton 28 September............Raymond Horrocks, 24, died HMP Wakefield 29 Sept.........John Baxter, 25, HMP Hull 3 October.........Stephen Davis, 49, HMP Pentonville 10 October.........David Hull, 32, died HMP Kingston 12 October...........Mandy Pearson, 37, died HMP Newhall 12 October.........Damien McCrae, 26, died HMP Manchester 13 October...........Mairi Taylor, 20, Cornton vale Prison, 13 October .........Katherine Jones, 19, HMP Brockhill 15 October.........John Manana, 24, died HMP Leicester 15 October...........Andrew Mackintosh, 49 Aberdeen Prison, 18th October...........Andrew Maguire, 34, died HMP Durham 21 October...........Paul Calvert, 40, HMP Pentonville 24 October..........Jason Thompson, 26, died HMYOI Werrington 1 Nov.........Michael Arthurs, died Peterhead Prison, 14 November ...........Daniel Sawford, 22, died HMP Lincoln 16 November.........Roman Piho, 33, died HMP Wormwood Scrubs 23 Nov.........Robert Robertson, died Barlinnie 12 December.........Name Withheld, 49, died Maghaberry Prison 12 December.........Mark Franks, 31, died HMP Liverpool 13 December...........Derek Crook, died Castle Huntly Prison

Family Unfriendly

On the 13th September 2006 the charity Action for Prisoners' Families (APF) announced it was launching its second "Family Friendly Prison Challenge".

Like so many prison charities APF seems to be more concerned with legitimising imprisonment rather than supporting its victims.

Beth, the partner of a serving prisoner gives her response......

I have been the partner of a prisoner for the past six years and have had plenty of opportunity to observe the way families are treated, both by the Prison System and by voluntary organisations connected to it.

I want to just tell you a bit about my experiences, which are on-going and somewhat raw. Last year I became really disillusioned with Action For Prisoners Families, a feeling that had been growing for some time. I attended their AGM and found, to my dismay, that there was no platform given to any family member and the event was dominated by the giving out of gongs to Governors and Prison Officers from various prisons in recognition of their "family-friendly" initiatives. A play was performed which included that tired old theme of blaming prisoners for causing family breakdown.

I say this disillusionment has been growing for sometime because what I have observed and experienced is that the more liberal elements of the Prison Service, encouraged and supported by organisations like Action For Prisoners Families and the Prison Reform Trust tend to see families as "forgotten victims" who the Prison Service should be nicer to. There's this agenda of "lets encourage them to be more understanding", coupled with a fairly thinly disguised criticism of families for being involved with prisoners at all. I'm sure no one at Action For Prisoners Families or the Prison Reform Trust would

ever acknowledge this but I have experienced first hand the subtle put-downs and criticisms. One worker who has been involved with both organisations, on meeting me started telling me how funny she found Catherine Tate's portrayal of a prisoner's partner. I have also come across that patronising stuff about how we always being pressurised in to sending in clothes.

If you mention the true scale of the abuse and humiliation to which prisoners friends and families are subjected then there is a certain embarrassed disbelief that I would imagine stems from spending far too much time at shindigs with prison staff and no time at all actually experiencing these humiliations firsthand.

How prison treats partners, children and friends of prisoners

Where's the outrage? I don't hear or see it. Most of us are just trying to survive and there's a definite reluctance to rock the boat because you don't know how that might affect your loved one. Here is just a small sample of what we face:

Telephone calls from prisons are substantially more expensive than normal phone lines.
Searching by drug dogs is routine in many jails, a humiliating experience that many visitors know is frequently inaccurate. I have been put on a closed visit after being in a train carriage that stunk of cannabis. I always take a change of clothes with me now, and I always feel nervous of the procedure.No one seems to know or care what psychological effects the long-term denial of privacy and intimacy in our relationships has on the mental well-being of thousands of human beings, denied the basic human dignity which others take for granted.

I barely look at screws now when visiting because I know that it does me no good at all to see the looks of disgust and judgement. This is a common experience and it still distresses me to hear of people being treated with such disdain. I just cannot agree that this is a "training" issue. Imprisonment is designed to cut people of from their loved ones and punish them with the torture of that separation. Visits represent a battleground for many screws because visitors are breaching that wall of separation. Visitors represent a failure to entirely cut off prisoners and totally punish them. Consequently the war on drugs is used as an excuse to conduct a war on visitors and prisoners. I would never have believed it possible that this was the case had I not seen it and experienced it over and over again for years on end.

I have been much more supported by the experience of being able to talk to other prisoners families via the Prison Chat UK website but also reading and hearing uncompromising criticism of this system helps me to survive it.

Prisons are family unfriendly

I am sick of seeing men women and children abused and humiliated by the Prison system. There is a general silence that surrounds so much of that pain and humiliation. Prisons cannot possibly be family friendly. They are designed to break up families, to separate people from those they love and to observe and threaten them constantly when they are together, with no respite. We know that family ties are the single biggest factor in preventing re offending but there is no consideration given to the maintenance of those ties, with some rare exceptions. The prisons run courses like "Family man" to encourage better parenting without any questioning of the manner in which prisons themselves undermine and, in many cases, destroy family life. Organisations like Action For Prisoners Families collude in these myths about the necessity of separation by saying that prisoners should be locked up nearer home or officers need training about the problems families face or we need better visitors' centres. What we need is to rethink the whole basis upon which we do this to people, most of them on low incomes and deprived of support and real justice. I find it hard to articulate it all here and to share even a small part of my sense of outrage and sorrow but I have also found great solidarity in talking to other visitors. Over and over again we say to one another "how can this go on like this?" and my answer is always that there are no votes in helping us and there is very little awareness out there about what we face.

Thank you for listening to me.

Beth

Also on this site

A Prison Visit

Loving the Unloved

External Links

Prison Chat UK

Prison Visit - The real welcome