"The numbers hide the true extent of misery inside prisons and for families. It is particularly tragic that teenagers and other young people have died by their own hand in our prisons and we should all be ashamed that this happened," Frances Cook, Chief Executive at Howard League said.
According to organization data, one-third of documented 2014 suicides, 14 of whom were between 18 and 24 years old, were committed by prisoners whose cases had been sent to lower courts for retrial. 2014 saw a total of 235 UK prisoners dying while in prison, out of over 84,000 inmates.
A decade ago, UK prison population stood at slightly over 74,500. Cook stressed that budget cuts and higher levels of incarceration directly contributed to the new findings.
"It is evident that people are dying as a direct result of the cuts to the number of staff, particularly [a lack of] more experienced staff, in every prison," the Howard League chief executive said.
Public spending in the United Kingdom has been cut severely since the implementation of the 2010 Conservative and Liberal coalition government austerity program. The program, set to end by 2015, was in December 2014 proposed to be extended to at least 2020 by British Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.
