From: NOTsomeone@microsoft.invalid 
  
 On 20/08/2025 09:07, Norman Wells wrote: 
  
 > But prison carries a distinct risk of death too. 
  
 You keep saying this, but is it actually true? Yes, of course people die 
 in prison, but there's a sizeable prison population. Some of them are 
 quite elderly, and you'd expect quite a lot of prisoners to die. 
  
 Your statement above states that prison itself causes people to die. I 
 think that's hard to determine, because: 
  
 The obvious starting position is to apply population mortality 
 statistics to the prison population, work out how many you'd expect to 
 die, and compare that to the number who actually die. 
  
 I'm pretty sure that that will show that fewer prisoners die than in the 
 general population - implying prison is a safer place to live, which I 
 don't believe for one moment. 
  
 One reason for that is that very ill prisoners get released on 
 compassionate grounds, so they don't actually die in prison and get 
 excluded from the stats. 
  
 Also, there's a selection process for getting into prison, which means 
 that, at least when they enter, prisoners are probably healthier than 
 the average for the population. For example, many crimes require an 
 above average level of physical fitness. 
  
 Even looking at suicide, prison has many safeguards, such as suicide 
 watch, which are not available outside prison. 
  
 So, I think it's rather a complex task to determine how risky prison is. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
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