BLACK and mixed-race prisoners in the UK are suffering “preventable and premature deaths” while incarcerated due partly to institutionalised racism, a devastating new report states.

Lawyers’ group Inquest says it has used previously unpublished data on ethnicity and deaths in prison to paint a bleak picture of Britain’s prisons estate.

It found how the “inappropriate use of segregation, racial stereotyping, the hostile environment, the neglect of physical and mental health, the failure to respond to warning signs, and the bullying and victimisation” has played a part in prison deaths.

Deborah Coles, executive director of Inquest, said: “We see time and time again repeated patterns of failure which contribute to the deaths of black and racialised people in prison. 

“Yet for too long the systemic issues contributing to these deaths have been ignored. 

“The failure of post-death investigations to examine the potential role of racism or discrimination in deaths renders racialised issues invisible. 

“As a result, the opportunity to acknowledge and address racial injustices and inequalities is lost.

“The decision to imprison the people featured in this report ended up being a death sentence.

“Imprisonment is ineffective in reducing crime and instead perpetuates harm and violence, with racialised and marginalised groups worst affected.

“In order to end deaths of racialised people in prison, in the short term we need more focused investigation, oversight and action on these deaths. 

“In the long term we must halt prison building and redirect resources from the criminal justice system to welfare, health, housing, education and social care.”

The report — Deaths of racialised people in prison 2015-2022: Challenging racism and discrimination — will be launched at an online seminar on October 22.

Zita Holbourne of Black Activists Rising Against the Cuts said: “We know that black and minority ethnic people are subjected to racism in the prison system which is closely linked to the institutional racism in policing and the judicial system, leading to disproportionate arrests, custodial sentences and criminalisation of black and minority ethnic communities.

“We are contacted by black and brown people who are criminalised in the UK by virtue of their immigration status or due to miscarriages of justice and for too many systemic racism leads to them dying in prisons when they didn't need to and often should never have been there in the first place.”

The Ministry of Justice has been contacted for comment.