Billy Wayne Dunn, age 47, committed suicide on September 28, 2021, in Harris County Jail. Mr. Dunn had been in a single cell and used a sheet to take his own life in the Houston, Texas, jail.

Suicide is a major problem in county jails across the U.S. One of the primary issues that leads to custodial suicides is the jail environment.

Suicide and the Jail Environment

Experts say that the jail environment is conducive to suicide for the following reasons and more:

• Personal control is diminished
• Familiar coping mechanisms may not work while incarcerated
• Being in jail separates individuals from their social networks, which may include friends, families, and mental health professionals
• Isolation and privacy in jail can make committing suicide too easy
• Unmarried inmates are more likely to commit suicide than those who are married
• Being in a single cell, which means only one person is housed there, increases the risk of suicide
• Inmates are often upset, worked up, and in a personal state of crisis about being jailed and act impulsively
• Mental health resources may or may not be available
• The level of mental health care available in jail may not match the level of care an inmate received previously

Learn more in this ongoing series.

There is no intention on this website to suggest that institutions or individuals have been participants in wrongdoing. The goal in adding posts on this site is to help inmates now or previously incarcerated in a Texas county jail.

–Guest Contributor