Two deaths in English prisons make me wonder how civilised we are in 2021 | Eric Allison

When unlawful detention and failure to provide food and medication are implicated in inmates’ deaths, this is a new low

• Eric Allison is the Guardian’s prisons correspondent

Without doubt, the conditions in jails in England and Wales are currently – and by some distance – the worst I’ve ever known them: both in four decades as a career criminal after first entering custody in 1957; and latterly, for 17 years, writing about the prison system that held me for about 16 years, on and off.

I base that statement on clear evidence. The past 14 months have been by far my busiest since joining this paper as prisons correspondent; inundated by calls, messages, letters about how Covid has had an impact on an already grossly underfunded, chaotic and dangerous system.