Sir, - The ongoing suicide rate among prisoners is both serious and saddening. Despite the views of prison doctors, I do not believe that prisoners who commit suicide are necessarily suffering from a psychiatric disorder.
They are under severe stress and clearly very vulnerable in terms of suicide risk. The stresses include the shock of incarceration, the dehumanising intrusions and restrictions imposed by the penitential regime, and the degrading sub-culture of prison life. The prisoners who commit suicide in the main do not constitute a serious risk to society. They should therefore not be incarcerated in an environment which in many cases leads to death.
An increase in prison psychiatric services will do nothing to improve this situation or reduce the suicide rate. What is required is a radical and an imaginative change in sentencing practices to make the punishment fit the crime. It is a tragic irony that having abolished capital punishment de jure in this country, a judge may unwittingly don the black cap in sentencing someone for snatching a handbag. - Yours, etc., Dr Peter Kirwan,
Clinical Director, Department of Psychiatry, Regional Hospital, Dooradoyle, Limerick.