A WOMEN’S prison in Falfield has the fourth highest suicide rate among female inmates in the country, it has been revealed.

In the last 10 years nine inmates of HMP Eastwood Park have taken their own lives while in custody.

The figures were released this week by the Howard League for Penal Reform, which is trying to improve the state of prisons in the country and reduce the number of people sent to them.

Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "The number of women dying in state custody over the last 10 years is a shaming indictment of our penal system.

"Judges and magistrates must not send women into our already bulging jails when effective community sentences are readily available."

In its figures the Howard League says that in total 1,668 women have died while in state care during the last 10 years, but only 72 were self-inflicted deaths, nine of which were at Eastwood Park.

In total 13 inmates have died while in custody at Eastwood Park during the last 10 years but four of these deaths were down to natural causes.

Steve Webb, MP for Northavon, said: "There are many more attempted suicides then ever reach public information. These figures are the tip of a very traumatic iceberg.

"I visit Eastwood Park fairly frequently and I think the staff who work there do their best to provide a humane environment in exceptionally difficult conditions and I simply think we send far too many women to prison.

"If there was evidence that it worked then fair enough, but it doesn’t, it is a revolving door. Talking to the women in Eastwood Park they leave the prison, they go back to the same lives they had before and soon enough they are back in Eastwood Park.

"There are some people that need to be locked up but at Eastwood Park there are some very vulnerable women who with the right environment could make something of their lives."

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said they would be providing £15.6 million of new funding over two years to invest in the provision of additional services in the community for women offenders who are not a danger to the public, and women at risk of offending.

He said: "The overarching goal is to significantly reduce the number of women in custody by 2011 and sustain this trend into the next spending period.

"Following a report by Baroness Corston in March 2007, the Government is committed to taking forward recommendations on improving provision and services for women in the community.

"For less serious offences, a community sentence can be a more suitable punishment and can be much more effective in preventing reoffending.

"Last year saw the lowest number of self-inflicted deaths since 1996, but there is no room for complacency."