Prisoner suicide
Prisoner suicide is a critical issue affecting correctional facilities, representing the third leading cause of death in American prisons. The suicide rates are particularly alarming, with a reported 50 per 100,000 inmates in local jails and 20 per 100,000 in state prisons as of 2014, marking significant increases from previous years. High-risk groups include new inmates grappling with their recent arrest, older prisoners facing health issues, and those with addiction or past self-harm behaviors. The harsh realities of prison life—such as isolation, violence, and the stress of losing connection to the outside world—can exacerbate feelings of hopelessness, making suicide a tragic alternative for many.
Efforts to reduce these incidents involve identifying vulnerable individuals and placing them on suicide watch, although this stringent monitoring can sometimes worsen their mental state. The methods of suicide among inmates typically involve hanging, utilizing materials readily available in their environment. Despite improvements in mental health awareness within prisons, comprehensive solutions require greater public investment and support for mental health services. This topic gained further attention after high-profile cases, such as the suicide of former NFL player Aaron Hernandez, highlighted the urgent need for addressing mental health within the correctional system. Overall, prisoner suicide remains a complex and pressing challenge, necessitating ongoing dialogue and action.
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Prisoner suicide
For correctional facilities given custodial responsibility for incarcerating either convicts or those awaiting judicial processing, few problems are more pressing than the reality of prisoner suicide. Suicide is the third leading cause of death in American prisons. Although data is not entirely reliable, as prison systems often resist full public disclosure of detainee self-harm because of potential legal liabilities, the US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported that in American prisons, the suicide rate in 2014 was roughly 14 inmates per 100,000 inmates in federal prisons (the highest rate in at least ten years), 20 inmates per 100,000 in state prisons (a one-third increase over the previous year), and 50 inmates per 100,000 in local jails (also the highest rate in ten years). Inmate suicide rates were slightly higher in Europe, where, according to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) in 2014, the average suicide rate was 62 per 100,000 inmates.
Despite numbers dropping since the 1970s due to improved psychiatric care in prison facilities and more careful attention paid to the responsibilities of suicide watch (the round-the-clock protective care of inmates who enter the system diagnosed as potentially suicidal), the threat represents a significant challenge for correctional officers. After all, it is the harrowing sociocultural environment of incarceration itself—the isolation, the boredom, the near constant threat of violence from other inmates, the harsh system of imposed discipline, the lack of sanitation, the stress of losing friends and family, the sense of hopelessness—that makes suicide itself a logical alternative. The challenge, then, is how to keep inmates alive when being an inmate is what makes them not want to live any longer.
Overview
Prisoner suicide most often affects one of two broad classifications of inmates: those initially being processed after arrest in local jails—that is, those first coming to terms with the reality of their arrest and its short- and long-term impact on their lives—and those already adjudicated (such as Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man sentenced to more than one thousand years for kidnapping and sexually abusing three young women for more than ten years, who hanged himself just a month after being sentenced). Some prisoners enduring long-term sentences in state or federal prisons with little hope of parole find sustaining a reason to live increasingly difficult.
Although inmates have limited access to mental health services, reducing prisoner suicide begins by identifying those most vulnerable to suicidal ideations: new arrivals, older inmates with increasing health problems, persons addicted to drugs or alcohol, those inmates with a history of self-destructive impulses. Inmates so designated can be placed on suicide watch, a strict process of oversight in which the inmate is checked every fifteen minutes while being kept in isolation, permitted only a minimum of clothing and allowed only finger foods, and often restrained to a chair or on a bed—a process that can actually increase despondency. Prison systems have become more aware of the need for communication between prisoners and staff to identify potential inmate risks in the general population.
Committing suicide in prison is not easy, and prisoners often suffer greatly from crude methods. The most common method is strangulation by hanging, using bedding, a belt, or any kind of heavy string attached to either an overhanging pipe or bed frame. Despite prisons upgrading their mental health awareness programs, significant help can only come from increased public monies—that is, the financial support of taxpayers who often cannot see the benefits of diligent work to keep these prisoners alive.
According to reports by Margaret E. Noonan for the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, the rate of prisoner suicides in American prisons increased for all three types of detention facilities—local jails, state prisons, and federal prisons—in 2014 (the latest date for which data was available as of early 2019). The most significant increase was in the suicide rate in state prisons (20 per 100,000 inmates), a one-third increase over the previous year (15 per 100,000 inmates); this spike came after a decade-plus of the state prison suicide rate hovering between 14 and 17 per 100,000 inmates per year. However, the increases in suicide rates in federal prisons (14 per 100,000 in 2014, versus 8 per 100,000 in 2013) and local jails (50 per 100,000 versus 46 per 100,000) were notable as well. The BJS also found that the suicide rate was higher among white prisoners than black or Hispanic inmates.
Meanwhile, the UNDOC "suggested in 2014 that suicide among prisoners appeared more frequently in Europe than other geographical regions, averaging 62 suicides per 100,000," according to Lewis Sanders IV for DW, the website of the German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Sanders also reported that in Europe, prisoner suicide "account[ed] for more than 21 percent of all deaths in prison in 2013." In the United States, suicide accounted for 11.4 percent of all state prison and local jail deaths combined (5.5 percent in state prisons and 33.8 percent in local jails) during the same period.
In the United States, new attention was brought to the issue of prisoner suicide after former National Football League (NFL) star Aaron Hernandez reportedly hanged himself in prison on April 19, 2017. Hernandez was two years into a life sentence for the 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd, for which he was convicted in 2015. His suicide brought to light the mental health challenges that are common but often underreported in the correctional system.
Bibliography
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