The death of a prisoner every so often seems to be the accepted price as the establishment benefits from zero tolerance for some, writes Gene Kerrigan

He wasn't considered ``at risk''. He was just another loser, doing a short sentence for a petty crime. It wasn't like he was facing years in Mountjoy. Just a three-month sentence, and he'd get out long before that. No need to hang himself.

But, none of us can enter the mind of a 25-year-old locked up with a chamber pot, sharing a cell, cut off from the things that gave his life meaning. We can only guess at the depression, the terror, the hopelessness that can lead to someone giving up on life.

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