I don't think you can compare the two. In prison individuals are supposed to be supervised and held securely. They are not supposed to have the means, or the freedom, to take their own lives.
Also, you are comparing statitics for a country of 60 million (which would include prison suicides) to a closed prison population of 80,000.
The rate of 7.1/100,000 population UK wide compares to a rate of 95 per year out of 80,000, a much higher rate.
You hinted at the issue in the first post I quoted.
It all comes down to what you want prison to be. I know that may seem liek a vacuous point, but let me explain.
What is the point of prison?
Is it to punish an offender further? Or is it to remove the offender from society, stripping them of their freedom? If it is the latter, then surely how these individuals are held is no concern, as the point of their incarceration is to protect the public. Any calls for further punishment would be based on a wish for further retribution against the individual, in a type of revenge for committing the crime.
Now, I am not saying that you would not be justified in holding some of those viewpoints, but I think these issues often get forgotten or glossed over, and it is important we discuss them.
HM Prison Service thinks prison is to:
To protect the public and provide what commissioners want to purchase by:
* Holding prisoners securely
* Reducing the risk of prisoners re-offending
* Providing safe and well-ordered establishments in which we treat prisoners humanely, decently and lawfully.
http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/ab...mentofpurpose/
I would argue that the statistics, including the high suicide rate and high recividism rate, shows that the current system is not working, or needs to be improved.
Would the re-offending rate be affected by making prison a harsher place?
This goes in tandem with the fact that we are sending more and more people to prison than ever before, and the current public opinion seems to be in favour of a retributive theory of punishment, keeping individuals in prison for their full sentences.
Would this really give rise to a low re-offending rate?
Well, I'm not sure. The biggest influence on recividism, and on crime in general, seems to be the economy, rather than any social measures. It is a tricky subject, to be sure, and I am not sure that I have any definite answers on this topic.
What I am sure about, however, is that prison is not a nice place to go. You are deprived of your freedom and forced into an institutionalised regime, where your life is highly ordered and you know, despite having normality only two hundred yards away over the walls, that you will not see it for a long length of time.
Also, the original article was referring to category C and D prisons in the main, rather than category A and B prisons, which are definitely not places I want to spend my time.