Black Mental Health UK: your news, policy and research resource on mental health and African Caribbean communities. We aim to reduce the inequalities in the treatment and care of people from African Caribbean communities and inform these communities on how to influence the strategic development, policy design and implementation of services.

'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere'

21 January 2008

In a society where we are given to believe that the sanctity of human life is paramount, and every citizen is considered innocent until proven guilty, the Ministry of Justice's publication of the exponential rise in alleged prison suicides, raises questions about how much our society values human life.

It is a damning indictment that at least one prison inmate has died every week in 2007.

It is even more reprehensible to learn that almost half the deaths were of people on remand, unsentenced, or awaiting sentence after conviction.

I know of young black men who have been locked away on suspicion of a crime and then later found innocent, and I am sure I am not alone. There is also extensive evidence to show that black people who enter the criminal justice system are often given harsher sentences.

With African Caribbean's fives times more likely to receive a custodial sentence than their white counterparts, this 40 per cent rise in self inflicted deaths is likely to be felt most keenly within black communities.

There are those who trust that PM Gordon Brown and Prisons Minister Maria Eagle are sincere about tackling this issue. We in the black community must commit to doing everything in our power to see the death rates fall, not only in prison settings but also in psychiatric detention, in 2008.

Last year, 300 people died while under Mental Health Act detention.

Although those in prison and psychiatric care are usually from the margins of society, and there are many I am sure who believe that these people should not be afforded the same protection of their human rights as others, there are few, I would hope, who would be of the opinion that anyone in custody deserves to die.

Dr Rev Martin Luther King wrote 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' This still rings true today; it is an injustice to know that so many young lives have been lost. A commitment from the Government to include black community and faith leaders, as well as key activist groups, in any national inquiry into reducing death rates, is paramount.

By Matilda MacAttram, director, Black Mental Health UK

This letter was published by The Voice Newspaper during Martin Luther King Week.