Built to Harm: how women's prisons take lives

Women who died in prison could still be alive today if the government had listened to calls from campaigners and years of evidence to end the imprisonment of women.

Instead, Built to Harm: how women's prisons take lives shows how the government prioritised tweaks to women’s prisons that have failed to prevent deaths and harm.

Between 2018 and 2024, 59 people died in women’s prisons in England and Wales, more than a third (39%) of these deaths were self-inflicted. In the next four years, self-inflicted deaths across all prisons in England and Wales are expected to rise by 21%.

By analysing seven of these deaths, including that of a baby, and official statistics of deaths and self-harm, the report uncovers recurring systemic issues:

• repeated failures to believe women in distress,
• malfunctioning prison processes,
• and the routine use of imprisonment as the response to social inequality and trauma.

To prevent further deaths, the report calls on the government to:

• dismantle the women’s prison estate and halt all prison expansion, 
• reconsider its plans to extend the punishment of women in the community,
• invest in community-based support services such as housing, mental health and domestic abuse services that would prevent women coming into contact with the criminal justice system.

FULL REPORT  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Acknowledgements:

This report was written by Jessica Pandian.

Thank you to Deborah Coles, Rosanna Ellul, Leila Hagmann and Mo Mansfield for their insightful contributions along the way and to the casework team for their assistance.

Thank you to Indianna Purcell for proofreading, Richard Fontenoy for assisting with the data analysis, and to Naomi Oppenheim for collating INQUEST's archival materials which are featured throughout the report.

We extend our gratitude to the bereaved families who we worked with throughout the process.

The report was designed by Rachel Carr