Are County Jail Suicides Occurring More Often?-Pt.9

Suicides in County and Municipal Jails

Continuing with more from the Bureau of Justice Statistics report on suicides, 60% of the inmate suicides in local jails in the 20 years from 2000 to 2019 were ages 25 to 44.
In the same two decades, 448 suicides occurred in local jails in Texas. In California, there were 615 suicides. Florida reported 333 and Pennsylvania had 325.
Almost 77% of the inmates who died by suicide in local jails from 2000 through 2019 had not been convicted of a crime.
Between 2015 and 2019, 10% of the suicides were inmates who spent more than 6 months in custody.
The least common times when jail suicides occurred were from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m.
From 2010 through 2019, nearly 73% of county and municipal jail suicides occurred in the inmate’s cell and 8% occurred in jail segregation units. In the same time period, nearly 14% of inmates who died by suicide had at least one overnight stay in a mental health services unit since they entered the jail.
In 2019, 91% of the jail facilities that reported prerelease or work as one of their jail functions did not have a death by suicide in that year.
The median rated capacity of local jails that had two or more suicides in 2019 was 1,296 beds, compared to a median capacity of 305 beds in jails with one suicide and 110 beds in jails that had no suicides.

Learn more in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8 of this continuing series.

Helping Texas jail detainees and their families with resources is one of the purposes of this website. There is no intention of suggesting that people or organizations have been involved in misdeeds.

–Guest Contributor

Written By: