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Islington Tribune - by PETER GRUNER
Published: 18 January 2008

Pauline Campbell leads the protest outside Holloway prison

Protesters in clashes with police over deaths of women prisoners

Campaigners call for changes to inmate conditions after latest death behind bars

THERE were skirmishes between campaigners and police on Wednesday during a demonstration to protest in response to the fourth woman to die of apparent self-inflicted wounds in Holloway prison in as many years.
A dozen demonstrators were forcibly confined to the pavement by a ring of police outside the prison in Parkhurst Road when they tried to confront and halt a prison van.
It follows the death last month of 24-year-old Jamie Pearce, from Romford, who was found in her cell after a suspected overdose. She is the fourth woman to die in the prison since 2004.
Campaigner Pauline Campbell, 59, who led the protest, has vowed to continue her campaign over deaths of women in custody.
Her own 18-year-old daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Campbell, died in Styal prison in 2003. Ms Campbell was arrested by police last year during a similar demonstration and later released without charge.
She said: “Can we please stop sending mentally ill people to prison? More than 70 per cent of prisoners, male and female, have two or more diagnosable mental disorders.
“What can be more cruel and inhuman than a society that sends sick people to prison?”
She called for the recommendations of the government’s Corston Report into prison reform, presented last year, to be implemented.
Ms Campbell added: “The government are saying there is no money to carry out the recommendations. That is outrageous.
“I call on the government to close down all the women’s prisons because they don’t work and they are not safe. Women convicted of non-violent offences should receive community sentences and get help in the community.
“Baroness Corston called for smaller custodial units near a woman’s family.”
Another demonstrator announced that a judicial review has now been granted in the case of her son, Paul Calvert, who died in Pentonville prison by hanging in 2004.
Gwen Calvert said: “We were very unhappy with the inquest. I want the Home Office to admit there was neglect.”
Eight women took their own lives in British prisons last year, more than the whole of 2005 and 2006 put together.

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