Former Conservative cabinet minister Jonathan Aiken, a Christian, who served time in jail for perjury, has urged the Prison Service to extend its 'Listener sche
The number of prisoners committing suicide while segregated has reached a ten-year high, according to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman for England and Wales.
In 2013/14 eight prisoners killed themselves in prison segregation units, four of whom had been assessed as at risk of suicide and self-harm.
"Some prisoners, Listeners in particular trained by the Samaritins, should be encouraged more to reach out to individual inmates who might be thought to be at risk. But everyone wants to stop suicides, noone quite knows how to produce a universal answer," said the former prisoner and cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken on Premier's News Hour.
The Listener scheme is a peer support service which aims to reduce suicide and self-harm in prisons. Samaritans volunteers select, train and support prisoners to become Listeners.
"Any suicide is a suicide too many, and it's a good thing to examine all the time why people commit suicide in prison and how it can be prevented. But segregation is part of prison life for better or worse," added Mr Aitken.
A Prison Service spokesman said the use of segregation was "carefully managed" and was for the safety of inmates.
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Article by Desmond Busteed
Desmond Busteed is a multimedia journalist for Premier.
