Falling through the cracks: ex-prisoners who died within two weeks of release

Growing number of people in England and Wales are being released into homelessness with little support

In the weeks running up to his release from prison, Robert Barraclough began feeling anxious about becoming homeless. He told staff that he feared having to sleep in a tent in the cold, and began to self-harm.

He had been serving a 19-month sentence for assault and criminal damage at HMP Nottingham, and initially told prison officers he was looking forward to seeing his family and working at his friend’s scaffolding business on release.

But as his release date came closer, and he had no guarantees of a place to live, his mental health deteriorated. He told his support worker he did not want to live outside prison as he “had nothing” and planned to end his life.

He was rejected for a place at a number of probation “approved premises” and, although offered a bed at YMCA Mansfield, when his release date came on 21 October 2022, a space was not available for another week.

At 10.30am on the day of his release, Barraclough’s support worker tried to contact probation to let them know a hotel room could be secured for him until the YMCA bed was available, but no one at Mansfield probation office answered the phone.

The following day, Barraclough was found dead at a house in Mansfield after taking prescription medication and smoking crack cocaine. He was 47 years old.

He is one of a growing number of people who have died within two weeks of being released from prison in England and Wales into homelessness.

Guardian analysis has found that the number of people dying within a fortnight after release from prison is at the highest since records began in 2021, and one in five of these people were homeless.

Experts said the housing crisis and a lack of funding for mental health and substance abuse services, as well as an overstretched probation and prison system, was pushing more prisoners into homelessness on their release.

The circumstances of prisoner deaths after release, detailed in prisons and probation ombudsman reports, show how a combination of substance misuse, mental health problems and homelessness allows individuals to fall through the cracks.

Like Darren Docherty, 48, who had a history of mental ill health and self-harm, and took his own life six days after release from HMP Stoke Heath in August 2023 where he had been serving a sentence for robbery.

On his release from prison, he applied for emergency accommodation from Stoke-on-Trent city council, but no beds were available and he ended up homeless and sleeping in a tent.

When he spoke to his GP on 9 August, five days after his release, he said worries about having nowhere to live were affecting his mental health.

That same day, his probation officer passed on Docherty’s risk information, including his poor mental state, to the council in an effort to secure him emergency accommodation at a hotel, but again nothing was available.

As his probation officer was due to go on holiday, the next appointment with Docherty was not scheduled until 23 August. His body was found in woodland the following day, on 10 August.

Mark Johnston, 49, died of a drug overdose five days after being released from HMP Swansea in April 2024 with nowhere to live.

He had been recalled to custody while serving an 18-week prison sentence for theft, and told his prison resettlement officer he would be released homeless and that he had taken drugs to cope with his mother’s recent cancer diagnosis.

The ombudsman report into his death said “workload pressures” had delayed the resettlement team from seeing Johnston while he was in prison, and confusion around responsibilities meant there was a significant delay in referring him for emergency support.

Andy Keen-Downs, the chief executive of the Prison Advice and Care Trust (Pact), said the increase in prison population and a worsening mental health crisis had created a “perfect storm” that was helping cause increasing post-prison homelessness and deaths.

“There is a chronic lack of sustained support for people post-release. Prisons and probation have been one of the worst-cut public services over the last 20 years, and staff have very little time to provide the necessary support,” he said.

“That, plus a massive gap in mental health care services, means we’re inevitably going to see homelessness and deaths.”

Of the people released into homelessness, he said, many would end up back in prison, others would would be long-term street homeless, and others would die. “Sometimes that will simply be because living on the streets for long enough will kill you, but often it’s combined with drugs and alcohol,” he said.

Pact works to help prisoners rebuild and maintain relationships with their family and friends, something which is proven to reduce homelessness, reoffending rates and deaths. “We need to be working with people, not just in their last 12 weeks of a prison sentence, but right from the start,” said Keen-Downs.