METERanyone with serious mental illness ends up in prison cells, and then struggle to be transferred to the hospital. The Guardian speaks to a woman jailed for setting a cushion on fire and a prison officer who runs a unit for the sickest prisoners.
‘Should have been in hospital’
Shell Ball can’t remember exactly what was going through her head when she set a cushion on fire at her home in Crewe in 2019. But she had been struggling to cope with the death of her fiancé, Gary, who had started drinking heavily after she lost a baby. “I got pretty drunk and I don’t really know why, but I set the corner of a cushion on fire. Upstairs they had heard me scream and called the police,” she said.
It was the start of a nightmare that would result in Ball, who has been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder, being jailed and then twice called to prison after attempting to take her own life. In total, she would spend almost a year and a half behind her bars and she would lose custody of her youngest child – all for setting fire to a cushion, as a cry for help.
Ball, 38, was held in a police station during that fateful weekend, charged with reckless arson. The following Monday she went to court and was detained at HMP Styal, Cheshire, just a week after Gary’s death. Ball was heartbroken. “I cried for two weeks. I just couldn’t stop crying. My world had come crashing down and now I was in prison,” he said.
When her case was heard, she wrote a moving letter to the judge explaining what had happened in her life, from being raped as a teenager to losing a child and a partner, but was still sent back to prison. “[The judge] He said, ‘I know you had no intention of hurting anyone but yourself that night,’ but he gave me two years.”
Ball began to self-harm as it gave him “some release” from the hopelessness of his situation. “There is no light at the end of the tunnel. A lot of people in prison are the same and that’s why people commit suicide and self-harm,” he said.
While on Styal, at least one woman died. “About 90% of the women there had mental health problems; that is most likely why they were there in the first place,” she said.
The prison put her on a plan for those at risk of self-harm and suicide. But she was only given the opportunity to speak to a psychiatrist on the phone just before she was released. “It did not make sense”.
She struggled to cope on the outside, as she had not received any sustained treatment in prison and was removed after two suicide attempts. Ball appealed to the Parole Board, but was rejected: “How can I be remembered for trying to take my own life? How is that criminal?
Ball was finally released in August 2021 and has been getting her life back on track. But she believes that she should never have been sent to prison: “I don’t see myself as a criminal. I wanted to hurt myself. she wanted to die. She should have been sectioned at the hospital and given the help she needed, which would have caused much less pain.”
A prison officer’s account: ‘It’s inhumane’
“Many officers avoid getting into this [mental health] unit because they classify it as the most dangerous part of the prison. You could open a door one day and the man in front of you could be nice as pie. You could open the door an hour later and he’d come out banging.
“Self-harm is quite high. We do not allow them to have razors or any sharp objects. But that doesn’t stop people. We’ve had people rip tiles off of our showers and self-harm on them. We had a guy try to cut his jugular a few months ago.
“We see it as containment rather than any form of treatment. We keep them mostly locked up. We let them out for a bit of association and take them outside for exercise. But in hospital wards they are out all day. It’s a much more relaxed environment. There are nurses to medicate them.
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“In prisons, we can’t always give them the same medication that they are prescribed in the community because certain drugs are not allowed within prison walls. Opioid-based drugs are prohibited because they are converted into currency.
“Many of these people end up in prison because of their mental health. I’m looking at my board right now: Of the eight I have in the unit today, there’s only one I’d say doesn’t fall into that category. There is one for carrying a sharp item. Another for harassment. He was left in the street screaming. He has psychosis and hears voices. Another person attacked a neighbor because he was playing the music too loud. And many of these are in care in the community anyway, even before they reach us. they are sick it is inhumane [to put them in prison].”
The officer, who wishes to remain anonymous, works in a mental health unit in an English prison.
