Palliative care in UK prisons: practical and emotional challenges for staff and fellow prisoners

Despite falling crime rates in England and Wales over the past 20 years, the number of prisoners has doubled. People over the age of 50 constitute the fastest growing section of the prison population, and increasing numbers of older prisoners are dying in custody. This article discusses some of the issues raised by these changing demographics and draws on preliminary findings from a study underway in North West England. It describes the context behind the rise in the numbers of older prisoners; explores the particular needs of this growing population; and discusses some of the practical and emotional challenges for prison officers, health care staff, and fellow prisoners who are involved in caring for dying prisoners in a custodial environment

‘We Call it Jail Craft’: The Erosion of the Protective Discourses Drawn on by Prison Officers Dealing with Ageing and Dying Prisoners in the Neoliberal, Carceral System

The UK prison population has doubled in the last decade, with the greatest increases among prisoners over the age of 60 years, many of whom are sex offenders imprisoned late in life for ‘historical’ offences. Occurring in a context of ‘austerity’ and the wider neoliberal project, an under-researched consequence of this increase has been the rising numbers of ‘anticipated’ prison deaths; that is, deaths that are foreseeable and that require end of life care. We focus here on ‘jail craft’; a nostalgic, multi-layered, narrative or discourse, and set of tacit practices which are drawn on by officers to manage the affective and practical challenges of working with the demands of this changed prison environment. Utilising findings from an empirical study of end of life care in prisons, we propose that the erosion of jail craft depletes protective resources and sharpens the practical consequences of neoliberal penal policies

'Holistic' Community Punishment and Criminal Justice Interventions for Women

Calls for ‘holistic' responses to halt the increasing imprisonment of women are continually reiterated. Solutions are sought which aim to be both ‘gender-responsive' and ‘community-based'; however, the absence of meaningful definitions of ‘community' and ‘holistic' means that superficial responses are often put in place in response to failures of the system. Taking as an example one attempt to introduce a community-based service for women in Scotland, this article examines the challenges of implementing services that are located within ‘the community' and considers the consequences for feasible attempts to reduce the number of women in prison in Scotland and internationally

Counting and Accounting for Deaths in Australian Immigration Custody

Since 2000, more than 1,500 people have died trying to reach Australia by boat or in other ways that are connected with the enforcement of border controls. This article is concerned with a subset of those deaths that can be classified as deaths in immigration custody. In the Australian context, official deaths in custody reporting has only included deaths in the custodial settings of prison, juvenile detention, and police custody, and during the apprehension of criminal suspects or escapees by police or prison authorities. Deaths that occur in immigration detention centers or while authorities attempt to take suspected "unlawful non-citizens" into Migration Act custody are not considered to be deaths in custody for the purposes of investigation and national monitoring. At least 29 such deaths have occurred in Australia since 2000. As with deaths in criminal justice settings, all of these deaths raise questions concerning duty of care, prevention of future deaths, and the use of homicide-related categories in establishing state culpability. This article examines the prospects for achieving a level of accountability for non-citizens who die in immigration custody that mirrors the procedures, however flawed, that apply within criminal justice settings.</p

Supporting imprisoned women who self-harm: exploring prison staff strategies

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of prison staff working with imprisoned women who self-harm in English prisons. In this small-scale study, 14 prison staff in three English prisons were interviewed to examine the strategies currently used by them to support imprisoned women who self-harm. Design/methodology/approach: Thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) was used to identify three key themes: “developing a relationship”, “self-help strategies” and “relational interventions”. Findings: Many staff expressed some dissatisfaction in the techniques available to support the women, and felt their utility can be restricted by the prison regime. Research limitations/implications: This study suggests that there is currently a deficit in the provision of training and support for prison staff, who are expected to fulfil a dual role as both custodian and carer of imprisoned women. Further research into prison staff’s perception of the training currently available could highlight gaps between current theory and practice in the management of self-harm and thus indicate content for future training programmes. Research exploring the impact of working with imprisoned women who self-harm is suggested to identify strategies for supporting staff. It must be acknowledged that this is a small-scale qualitative study and the findings are from only three prisons and may not apply to staff in other settings. Originality/value: Currently few studies have focussed on the perspective of prison staff. This study is one of very few studies which focusses on the techniques and resources available to support the women, from the perspective of the prison staff

Care or custody?:an evaluation of palliative care in prisons in North West England

This study aimed to evaluate health professionals' views about palliative care provision in prisons in the counties of Cumbria and Lancashire in the North West of England. Seventeen prison healthcare staff and nine specialist palliative care staff participated in semi-structured interviews and 16 prison healthcare staff completed a questionnaire designed to measure knowledge, skills and confidence in relation to palliative care. The findings highlighted tensions between the philosophies of care and custody, and the many challenges in providing palliative care in a custodial setting. This paper presents two illustrative case study examples, and suggests ways in which some of these challenges can be overcome in practice