FEWER people should be sent to prison to help cut the number of suicides, the head of a government review stated yesterday.

Labour’s Lord Harris, who was drafted in earlier this year to study how to reduce self-inflicted deaths in custody, said that resources were being stretched due to the number of individuals being jailed unnecessarily.

Prison suicides have risen by nearly 50 per cent since 2010, with 87 inmates taking their own lives in the 12 months to September, according to Ministry of Justice figures.