Gilbert Kervlis was booked into Bexar County Jail in San Antonio, Texas, six days prior to his death on October 1, 2020. Mr. Kervlis was 48 years old when he committed suicide in his cell.

Statistics on Suicides in Local Jails Continued

More from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) on inmate deaths in local U.S. jails follows:

• Almost 90% of the suicide fatalities in local jails involved suffocation by way of hanging and self-strangulation.
• One area that saw a decrease was in the timing of the inmate suicides. About 12% of the suicides in local jails during 2015 through 2019 occurred within the first 24 hours of incarceration. This was down from 22% during the years 2000 through 2004. 
• The percentage of jail inmates aged 55 and older who died by suicide was 3% from 2000 to 2004 and increased to 9% from 2015 through 2019.
• Among all the age groups during the years 2000 through 2019, local jail inmates aged 55 and older had the highest average suicide rate, at 78 deaths per 100,000 local jail inmates.
• From 2000 through 2019, the average suicide rate per 100,000 was 86 for white inmates, 16 for black inmates, and 25 for Hispanic inmates. 

Learn more in Part 1 and this continuing series.

Implications that people or entities have been engaged in wrongs are never intended on this website. Providing county jail inmates in Texas with helpful resources is the purpose of the posts on this site.

–Guest Contributor