Dr Seena Fazel, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, compared prisoners who committed suicide between 1978 and 2003 with the number of suicides in the general population. He found that 15- to 17-year-olds were 18 times more likely to take their life if they were in prison.
Fazel said: "Half of the prisoners that commit suicide have a treatable mental illness."
Deborah Coles, from bereavement group Inquest, said: "This report should be required reading for government ministers."
Next week, the Howard League for Penal Reform is launching a campaign calling for an end to the imprisonment of children and young people.
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