Dexter Dias QC addresses Annual Bar Conference on the alarming number of women dying in prison.

Over the course of nearly two decades, one young woman has died in our prisons every ten weeks. A large percentage of these deaths were preventable. At the Annual Bar Conference on Saturday 7 November 09, Dexter Dias QC spoke on the need for a fundamental reappraisal of the Government's approach to women in custody, and how in the two years following publication, key recommendations from the report by Baroness Corston on vulnerable women in prison remain in abeyance. The figures are stark; they make for grim reading. A higher percentage of women are remanded in custody than men. More suffer from drug addiction. More suffer mental health problems. More have been the victims of violence. More have suffered sexual abuse. More resort to self harm, more seriously and more frequently. And more, proportionately, die in prison. Garden Court continues to work with the charity INQUEST to highlight and bring about change to this unnecessary squandering of young life. If you would like more information, please contact Dexter Dias QC or read INQUEST's book 'Dying on the Inside' (Examining Women's Deaths in Prison), available from http://inquest.gn.apc.org/dying_on_the_inside.html.