Prison Suicide: Theorising its Regulation

Abstract

Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship ‘Prison Suicide: Theorising its Regulation’ (University of Sheffield). Suicides in English and Welsh prisons rose by 69% between April 2013 and 2014, despite recent strengthening of prison inspection, monitoring and regulation mechanisms. Such suicides form traumatic bereavements for prisoners' families and friends, affect fellow prisoners and custodial staff, and leave prisons open to legal challenges. Despite the importance of regulating closed penal institutions with coercive powers over detainees, there is a dearth of related scholarship. I address this gap, providing a ground-breaking and timely analysis of the relationships between prison suicide and regulation, and developing regulatory theory to take into account privatisation and multiple penal regulators