The suicide of a young inmate points up how indifferent we are now to conditions in jail
I am sitting at my desk in a Covid-secured Observer newsroom trying to achieve a feat that may be beyond my journalistic skill: to make you care about the vile state of our prisons.
A generation ago, liberal newspapers and the BBC competed to break stories about the degradation inflicted in the public’s name. Now the web has given editors too much information. In the 20th century, they could kid themselves that readers cared. But the click-counters don’t lie and the 21st century has shown that, although readers say they care, as a matter of observable fact they don’t. Prison reform has all but vanished from public debate.
