Women commit 55 percent of all recorded self-harm in prison, even though they make up only 6 percent of the jail population.
Sarah Campbell was the third and youngest of six self-inflicted deaths at Styal women's prison in Cheshire between August 2002 and August 2003.
"They had a dead woman on average once every eight weeks for 12 months," Campbell said.
Sarah died three days before her 19th birthday. Sentenced to three years for manslaughter and with a history of self-harm, she was terrified she would be attacked by other inmates for "grassing up" her female accomplice.
A heroin addict at 16, she had been found guilty after the elderly man she and another woman harassed for money died of a heart attack.
Put in a segregated cell for her own protection, Sarah, who had been off heroin for eight months, took an overdose of prescription antidepressants and died hours later in a Manchester hospital.
"The death was not a suicide," said Campbell. "It was quite clear that my daughter did not intend to die. It was a cry for help."
Her inquest found that avoidable delays and a failure in the prison's duty of care contributed to her death.
"Everything they could have got wrong, they got wrong," Campbell said.
"It was a Saturday afternoon and Sarah, despite being on suicide watch in the segregation punishment block, somehow managed to ingest a quantity of tablets.
"But then she told prison staff what she had done. And the prison staff, including a nurse -- it's hard to believe -- walked out of the cell and locked the door, leaving Sarah unattended.
"Then there was an argument between a prison officer and a nurse about whose job it was to call an ambulance. Somebody else went off to look for some handcuffs.
"When the ambulance arrived at the prison gates it was held up for eight minutes before they let it through.
