The latest report from HM Inspectorate of Prisons lays bare a brutal reality that those of us with lived experience of incarceration have long known: prison is not just punitive; it is dehumanising. The findings, particularly the link between neglect of basic needs and rising self-harm among women in custody, reflect a systemic failure that should shame us all.
As someone who has endured the degradation of washing my own knickers in the same sink where I was expected to wash my hair, my body, my cutlery, and my dignity, I can say without hesitation that these conditions are not just unacceptable; they are dangerous. In my own experience, I went eight days before I was allowed a shower. I was denied my mental health medication for over ten weeks, left to go cold turkey in a cell over Christmas, isolated, alone, and suicidal. The neglect was not incidental; it was built into the system. And it is still happening.


Systemic Neglect: A Breeding Ground for Harm
The report highlights that self-harm in womens prisons is driven by a frustration about a lack of basic care. This is an understatement. It is not just frustration; it is despair, it is degradation, and it is institutional violence. The prison service often justifies restrictive regimes as measures of control, yet what they are truly controlling is womens ability to maintain even the most fundamental aspects of their humanity. When women are denied basic hygiene products, regular showers, and access to healthcare, we are not simply talking about poor prison management. We are talking about cruelty.
Prison is often framed as a place of rehabilitation, but how can a woman be expected to rehabilitate when she is not even afforded the dignity of proper hygiene? When she is left in pain, untreated, without access to medical care? When she is forced to sit in a cell, hour after hour, with no meaningful human connection, no visitations, and no relief from the crushing weight of isolation?
These are not mere oversights. These are deliberate policy choices.
What Needs to Change?
From the Coming Home perspective, the solutions are clear. But they require a shift away from the punishment-first mentality that underpins our prison system.
1. Dignity as a Standard, Not a Privilege
Women in prison should have guaranteed access to hygiene products, regular showers, and clean laundry facilities. No woman should be expected to wash her underwear in a sink alongside the very plates she eats from. This is not just about comfort, it is about public health, mental well-being, and human decency.
2. Healthcare as a Right, Not a Battle
Ten weeks without mental health medication is not just negligence it is abuse. Healthcare delays, particularly in prisons, are leading women into crisis. Every woman entering custody should receive an immediate health assessment, with continuity of care built into their prison sentence. That means access to prescribed medications without delay, mental health support, and trauma-informed care as a baseline, not an afterthought.
3. Addressing Isolation as a Form of Harm
Locking women away for long hours, denying visits, and restricting communication with loved ones only serves to exacerbate distress. During COVID-19, women were kept in cells for 23+ hours a day, unable to see their families, completely cut off from the outside world. This is not just bad policy it is psychological torture. Future policies must prioritise meaningful human connection, ensuring that every woman has access to regular visits, phone calls, and digital communication where appropriate.
4. Abolishing the Culture of Indifference
Too often, prison officers and decision-makers treat women suffering as a matter of inconvenience rather than a crisis requiring immediate intervention. Training in trauma-informed practice must be more than a box-ticking exercise - it must be embedded into the very fabric of prison culture. Women's distress should never be met with dismissal or punishment but with care, understanding, and action.
Hopes for the Future
My hope is simple; that no woman in prison will ever again feel the way I did -isolated, neglected, unseen. That a womans ability to maintain her hygiene and health will not depend on luck or advocacy but will be standard practice. That we move beyond the narrative of prison as punishmentand towards a system that prioritises safety, dignity, and the potential for real change.
Because prison, as it stands, is not a place of rehabilitation. It is a place of harm. And until that changes, we are not just failing women, we are actively breaking them.
It is time to stop asking why women are self-harming in prison and start demanding why our prison system is still designed to drive them to the brink.
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