[Don't you sometimes wonder about the brains of bureaucrats?]

A poster campaign from the Prison Service will show prisoners in England and Wales how to hang themselves.

The Service hopes the “shocking” campaign will reduce the number of prison deaths, which this year stands at 89.

They will show images of hanging inmates with descriptions of how easy it is to commit suicide in a cell.

The director general of the Prison Service, Martin Narey, told The Independent, he’d decided on the measure after consulting the Prisons minister, Hilary Benn, the Samaritans and prison reform groups.

He argued the campaign wouldn’t encourage more prisoners to kill themselves, saying, after 89 jail deaths this year, hangings had become commonplace at prisons.

Mr Narey said: “Not everyone agrees with me about this. Some people believe if I do as I’m going to do it might put this in people’s minds. But this is in people’s minds already, we’ve had 89 people kill themselves.”

He said he hoped the “very frank and very stark” images would “shock, and grab young people’s attention and get them to take the danger to themselves seriously”.

The decision comes as new Home Office figures forecast that the prison population could rise from 73,000 to 100,000 in four years’ time. Even under a best-case scenario, the figure could be 91,400 in seven years time. Prison reformers argue the number of suicides is a by-product of overcrowding. —Ananova

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2002