The custodial death report (CDR) prepared regarding Arturo Gomez states that he was arrested and jailed in the La Joya City Jail in La Joya, Texas, for alleged public intoxication. He was placed with other inmates and discovered unresponsive not long after he arrived at the jail. CPR was started and EMS personnel continued the life-saving measures and took him in an ambulance to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead on April 18, 2022.

Changes in Jail Suicide Statistics

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) reports that in the 1980s, there were no dramatic differences between suicides after an interval of 7 years. Since that time, after 20 more years, the characteristics of jail suicide have changed dramatically. Key characteristics of inmate suicide that remained constant in the 80s included type of offense, intoxication, isolation, length of confinement, and method or instrument. These are areas in which changes have been drastic.

Whereas victims of custodial suicide once tended to be booked on “minor other” offenses, more recently, suicide victims have been detained on “violent and/or personal” charges. Whereas previously, intoxication was a leading precipitant of jail suicides, more recent data shows the same circumstances now occur in a minority of the cases.

Formerly, more than 50% of all jail suicide victims were pronounced dead within the 1st 24 hours of incarceration. Nowadays, less than 25% of all custodial suicide victims commit the act of suicide in that time period. Another 25% of the suicides occur on days 2 through 14 of confinement.

Learn more information in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this ongoing series.

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–Guest Contributor