Continuing with a final statistic, jails with 100 beds or fewer have a suicide rate that’s about ten times what it is in the nation.

The following events that occurred in a municipal jail are shared with jailers as a way of helping to shed light on individuals who are high-level suicide risks.

Insights into the Custodial Suicide of a Middle-Aged Inmate

A man between the ages of 40 and 60 was arrested and booked into jail on a charge of second-degree sexual assault, having been accused of groping a college student at a bar. He repeatedly told the police officers that this was his first arrest, and he asked if his name would be in the newspapers. He was agitated but then became sullen and obviously depressed.

After going through intake at the jail, officers placed the man in a single-occupancy cell. Ten minutes later, jailers found that he was hanging by his neck from the cell door. He had used a bed sheet as a ligature. The officer was unable to cut the man down immediately because the sheet was wound too tightly around the inmate’s neck. He ran to retrieve a chain cutter from a squad car. Paramedics at the firehouse next door to the jail were called to the scene, but they were unsuccessful in their attempts to resuscitate the man.

To learn more, see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, and Part 10 of this series.    

This website seeks to help Texas inmates in municipal and county jails by providing resources that could be of benefit. Making insinuations that institutions or persons have been involved in misdeeds is not intended.

–Guest Contributor