Women’s self-harm in UK Prisons

Prisoners are a major part of the human population in every country. An individual is termed as a prisoner when he or she becomes guilty of the crime and gets imprisoned for a certain amount of time. Women self harm un UK prisons has been observed to be at a higher rate than men. According to various observations, it has been found that self-harm has the probability of leaving permanent scarring (Jewkes 2014). Suicide is very common among the middle-aged women prisoners of UK prisons. According to various studies on this topic, it has been observed that the self-harm repetition was very common in teenage girl and women prisoners (Chamberlen 2016). The case-control studies proved that 139,195 incidents involving self harm were observed in 26,5210 women as UK prisoners between 2004 and 2009 (Howard et al. 2017). Female prisoners showed a 5% to 6% higher rate of the self farm than men as prisoners in the UK (Fazel, Ramesh and Hawton 2017). There is also a report which shows that 109 subsequent suicides among the women prisoners in the UK were observed after they conducted self-harm (Annison and Brayford 2015). Thus, this condition became a crucial topic of discussion of various research studies in the field of law and crime. This study will state a detailed outline of the proposal on the issues associated with women’s self-harm in UK prisons. This paper will also provide a research problem and address the issue by undergoing various literature reviews. The methodology and data analysis will also state about the analytical procedure of this study. Lastly, there will also be a reflection statement, which will talk about the learning elements of the study.

Self-harm has been observed to be deliberate of an intentional attack on one’s own body which can also progress to a commitment of suicide. One of the most significant raising issues is the current condition of self-harm among the prisoners of the UK. The behavior of self-harm can often be related to the issues associated with the mental health of the individual. According to various observations, it can be stated that the psychiatric morbidity and suicide rates are higher than every other cause for self-harm among the women of the UK (Fazel et al. 2016). There are various psychiatric factors that are associated with this current issue of self-harm (Tartaro 2019). Mental illness is very much related to psychiatric disorders, which finally makes the person to take wrong decisions and harm themselves intentionally. However, self-harm can progress to suicide even if suicide and self harm are completely different. This paper will discuss the prevalence and self harm assessment in the prisons of the UK.  

Prevalence and assessment of self-harm in UK Prisons

The primary aim of this research study is to describe the hiking concern of self-harm among the women of the UK who are imprisoned.

The central objectives of the research study are:

1. To assess the primary reasons for the increased rate of self-harm among the women prisoners in the UK.  
2. To assess the central problems associated with self-harm among the women inmates of UK prisons.
3. To provide a short recommendation for decreasing the risk of self-harm in the UK.

The research questions developed are:

RQ1: What are the reasons responsible for the higher rate of self-harm among the women prisoners in the UK.

RQ2: What are the central problems associated with the self-harm among women inmates of UK prisons.

RQ3: What are the recommendations to reduce the risk of self-harm in the UK.

This research proposal will be using the paper of Chan et al. (2016) which discusses the suicide prediction and self-harm concept in the women prisoners of the UK. The concept of self-harm stated in this paper talks about the fact that people with a self-harm history have a higher risk of suicide than the people of the general population. There is a complex relationship between self harm and suicide (Knight, Coid and Ullrich 2017). This is a quantitative study, which is designed as a prospective cohort for the populations associated with self-harm. There were few risk scales that were included in the study to examine the suicide risk among the people (Bartlett and Hollins 2018). A mathematical factor known as differences in predictive accuracy between the populations was calculated where applicable. This study conducted seven risk scale and twelve risk factors to understand the factors which emerged due to meta-analysis (Borschmann et al. 2018). This study successfully calculated that the positive predictive values lied between 1.3 to 16.7% proving that both the risk of suicide increases along with the increase in self-harm in the United Kingdom. However, it was evident that both the concepts are different although one is dependant on the other during an increment. Recommendations can be made to provide a comprehensive psychosocial assessment of the needs and risks of the associated individuals (women) in UK prisons. According to Hawton et al. (2014) it can be stated that the rate of self-harm and suicide among the prisoners is very common in the UK. This was a case-control study, in which the follow-up rate of suicide after self-harm was studied among the women prisoners of England. This study involved the collection of secondary data in the form of self-harm incidents in every prison of Wales and England. The findings suggested that 20 to 24% of female prisoners were associated with a total of 139195 self-harm incidents. Thus it was concluded that the self-harm burden was substantial especially for women (Bresin and Schoenleber 2015). Treatment and prevention of self-harm among the prisoners is an essential component for the prevention of suicides. Thus, it can be stated that self-harm among the female prisoners of the UK is a crucial topic for research studies in this field. According to Walker et al. (2016), it can be stated that 5% of the total women prisoner group directly inflicts harm on the body than the community of male prisoners. By this procedure, the criminal justice system gets challenged since the situation becomes life-threatening and acts as a predictor of the hiked rate of suicides. The rate of self-harm was ten times higher than men as stated by Walker and his group. Women prisoners have been observed to suffer from pre psychiatric contracts, drug misuse, alcohol abuse, and various other factors, which deteriorated their health conditions. The authors stated that chronic or permanent disfigurement of women occurred due to self-harm. Thus, it was observed that imprisoned women used medical skin camouflage to adjust to the situation. Therefore it can be stated that the rate and effect of self-harm were much higher in the case of women than men. This paper discussed the recommendation policies, which can be used to reduce the effects of self-harm among the victims (Ness et al. 2015). The participatory action research (PAR) performed by Ward and Bailey (2013) states that self-harm inside the custody is a significant phenomenon. This research study identified the weaknesses and strengths of the current care pathways which offer suggestions for the development of services based on their experiences of receiving and delivering care (Stoliker 2018). On the authors’ note, it can be stated that engagement services can bring positive changes to the risk associated with self-harm in women prisoners of the UK (Marzano et al. 2016).

Policy data for reduction of self-harm

There are two sources of data, primary and secondary. The primary source involves the self-collection of data by the author and the secondary collection of data will be done by previous sources of pieces of literature. This research will be conducted using the secondary and primary sources of data. The collection of data will take place in a systematic way and data will be measured over the targeted variables. Policy data for reduction of self-harm among UK prisoner women will also be collected from NCBI. These two ways will be used for data collection. The primary and secondary data collection methods are included in this research study. The primary data collection will consist of questionnaires, surveys, and interviews among the group of people selected for the study. The past research study uses secondary sources of data which include articles and journals (Borschmann et al. 2017). Thus, this study will include both secondary and primary sources of data. Secondary data will include the collection of data from Google Scholar and NCBI for various research papers. These research papers will be based on the topic of “Self-harm” and “Women prisoners of UK”. Data will be collected from the research papers used in the section of the literature review.  

Data analysis will involve the inspection, transformation and modeling of the data required for supporting the decisions. Two ways of data analysis will be used here- qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative analysis of data will include the gathering and processing of data in order to explain and interpret the involve scenarios. Quantitative data analysis method will be used to analyze the data. This analysis will use Microsoft Excel to construct bar graphs. These graphs will be used to analyze the self-harm prevalence among the women prisoners of the UK. The prevalence percentage of factors responsible for self-harm (psychiatric disorders, traumatic conditions, frustrations, and others) will also be analyzed graphically to draw a conclusion. The data will be analyzed in this way after the proposal gets approved for the preparation of a dissertation. The policy chosen for the study to reduce the rates of self-harm among women in UK will be analysed on the basis of graphical representations (Bartlett et al. 2015). The data for effectiveness of the policy will be plotted on the Y axis whereas the data for the prison cells associated with the policy will be plotted on the X axis.

Data collection and analysis

After reading the previous sections, it can be stated that self-harm in UK prisons is a significant factor for social research. The section can be briefly described by saying that prisons in the UK consist of women who either harm themselves or commit suicide. The prevalence rate of self-harm among the women of the UK is very high as compared to male prisoners. Various psychiatric disorders were diagnosed among women who undergo self-harm in the prisons of the UK. A mathematical factor known as differences in predictive accuracy between the populations was calculated where applicable. This study conducted seven risk scale and twelve risk factors to understand the factors which emerged due to meta-analysis. This study successfully calculated that the positive predictive values lied between 1.3 to 16.7% proving that both the risk of suicide increases along with the increase in self-harm in the United Kingdom (Gould, McGeorge and Slade 2018). There is also a report which shows that 109 subsequent suicides among the women prisoners in the UK were observed after they conducted self-harm. Thus, this condition became a crucial topic of discussion of various research studies in the field of law and crime. These are the various factors, which have been discussed in the previous sections.

I feel that the spotted factors responsible for the prevalence of self-harm among the women prisoners of the UK are justified. The problem statement of this paper has clearly stated that the fact of suicide commitment and self-harm are not the same. These two factors are significantly prevalent in UK prisons since the chances of suicide increases with self-harm. According to my feelings, it can be stated that various psychiatric factors are associated with a higher rate of self-harm and suicide commitment among the people. Prisoners mainly experience these conditions since they get frustrated or agitated due to their harsh life.  

 On analyzing the topic of this research, it can be stated that women have higher chances of self-harm than men in the UK. This condition has also been mathematically justified after the data analysis has been performed. Various psychiatric factors are responsible for the dangerous self-harming action of women in UK prisons. However, the weaknesses of this research are that this study based on the primary data collection in an interview process. Thus, various kinds of problems can arise during data collection. Ethical issues such as informed consent can also arise while collecting the primary data.

Conclusion

One of the most significant recommendations for reducing the rate of self-harm among the women prisoner population of the UK is to appoint counselors to help them get rid of their current mental condition. According to various research studies, it has been observed that women prisoners in the UK have been suffering from various mental disorders, which made them pose serious self-harm. Some of the self-harm also causes scarring of the skin of the prisoners. This also makes them remember their harsh life in UK prisons. Thus, camouflage can be used by the women to cover the scars to help them recover from the thoughts of self-harm.

Conclusion

The outline of this research will consist of the prevalence self-harm assessment among the prisoners including women of the UK. Then it will assess the factors responsible for inducing self-harm in the community of women prisoners in UK. The problem statement of this paper has clearly stated that the fact of suicide commitment and self-harm are not the same. These two factors are significantly prevalent in UK prisons since the chances of suicide increases with self-harm. According to my feelings, it can be stated that various psychiatric factors are associated with a higher rate of self-harm and suicide commitment among the people. Prisoners mainly experience these conditions since they get frustrated or agitated due to their harsh life. Finally, two recommendations will be stated for the reduction of self-harm and its effects on UK prisoners. Thus, it can be stated that the self harm prevalence is higher for women than men, which can be controlled by following the recommendations.

References

Annison, J. and Brayford, J. eds., 2015. Women and criminal justice: From the corston report to transforming rehabilitation. Policy Press.

Bartlett, A. and Hollins, S., 2018. Challenges and mental health needs of women in prison. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 212(3), pp.134-136.

Bartlett, A., Jhanji, E., White, S., Anne Harty, M., Scammell, J. and Allen, S., 2015. Interventions with women offenders: a systematic review and meta-analysis of mental health gain. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 26(2), pp.133-165.

Borschmann, R., Thomas, E., Moran, P., Carroll, M., Heffernan, E., Spittal, M.J., Sutherland, G., Alati, R. and Kinner, S.A., 2017. Self-harm following release from prison: A prospective data linkage study. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 51(3), pp.250-259.

Borschmann, R., Young, J.T., Moran, P.A., Spittal, M.J. and Kinner, S.A., 2018. Self-harm in the criminal justice system: A public health opportunity. The Lancet Public Health, 3(1), pp.e10-e11.

Bresin, K. and Schoenleber, M., 2015. Gender differences in the prevalence of nonsuicidal self-injury: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 38, pp.55-64.

Chamberlen, A., 2016. Embodying prison pain: Women’s experiences of self-injury in prison and the emotions of punishment. Theoretical Criminology, 20(2), pp.205-219.

Chan, H.C., Lo, T.W. and Zhong, L.Y., 2016. Identifying the self-anticipated reoffending risk factors of incarcerated male repeat offenders in Hong Kong. The Prison Journal, 96(5), pp.731-751.

Fazel, S., Hayes, A.J., Bartellas, K., Clerici, M. and Trestman, R., 2016. Mental health of prisoners: prevalence, adverse outcomes, and interventions. The Lancet Psychiatry, 3(9), pp.871-881.
Tartaro, C., 2019. Suicide and self-harm in prisons and jails. Rowman & Littlefield.

Fazel, S., Ramesh, T. and Hawton, K., 2017. Suicide in prisons: an international study of prevalence and contributory factors. The Lancet Psychiatry, 4(12), pp.946-952.

Gould, C., McGeorge, T. and Slade, K., 2018. Suicide screening tools for use in incarcerated offenders: a systematic review. Archives of Suicide Research, 22(3), pp.345-364.

Hawton, K., Linsell, L., Adeniji, T., Sariaslan, A. and Fazel, S., 2014. Self-harm in prisons in England and Wales: an epidemiological study of prevalence, risk factors, clustering, and subsequent suicide. The Lancet, 383(9923), pp.1147-1154.

Howard, R., Karatzias, T., Power, K. and Mahoney, A., 2017. From childhood trauma to self?harm: An investigation of theoretical pathways among female prisoners. Clinical psychology & psychotherapy, 24(4), pp.942-951.

Jewkes, Y., 2014. An introduction to “doing prison research differently”.

Knight, B., Coid, J. and Ullrich, S., 2017. Non-suicidal self-injury in UK prisoners. International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 16(2), pp.172-182.

Marzano, L., Hawton, K., Rivlin, A., Smith, E.N., Piper, M. and Fazel, S., 2016. Prevention of suicidal behavior in prisons. Crisis.

Ness, J., Hawton, K., Bergen, H., Cooper, J., Steeg, S., Kapur, N., Clarke, M. and Waters, K., 2015. Alcohol use and misuse, self-harm and subsequent mortality: an epidemiological and longitudinal study from the multicentre study of self-harm in England. Emerg Med J, 32(10), pp.793-799.

Stoliker, B.E., 2018. Attempted suicide: A multilevel examination of inmate characteristics and prison context. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 45(5), pp.589-611.

Walker, T., Shaw, J., Hamilton, L., Turpin, C., Reid, C. and Abel, K., 2016. Supporting imprisoned women who self-harm: exploring prison staff strategies. Journal of Criminal Psychology, 6(4), pp.173-186.

Ward, J. and Bailey, D., 2013. A participatory action research methodology in the management of self-harm in prison. Journal of mental health, 22(4), pp.306-316.