Jail suicides are often preventable, but suicide prevention usually requires diligence on the part of jail staff. In Texas, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) provides the procedures that city and county jails are required to follow. Those procedures largely apply to the protection of inmates. Suicide prevention is addressed in many of the jail standards in Texas. The following are true accounts of suicides that occurred in the same jail over a fairly short period of time:

• A guard sat a few feet away from a suicidal inmate, and the guard was listening to music while playing on his portable PlayStation. It was later found that during a span of 22 minutes, the inmate tried eight times to hang himself. He then stood on top of the toilet to hang himself from the vent using strips made from his anti-suicide smock. Two guards attempted to open the cell door for the purpose of cutting the inmate down. At that time, the guard who had been with the inmate stopped another guard from contacting medical personnel. The guard finally allowed the call to be made after the inmate’s body went limp. The inmate died and the guard who had been supervising him was disciplined.

• A few months later at the same jail, an inmate with a history of mental illness was not treated as a suicide risk. Jail officials observed no signs of the inmate being suicidal or of being at immediate risk of suicide. Within hours of the inmate’s arrest, he was discovered dead in his cell. He had hanged himself with his bedsheet.

• Less than three weeks later, an inmate was booked into the jail who had evidence of self-harm on his arms. He was placed on cell checks at 15-minute intervals. He tried to hang himself between cell checks and died ten days later.

The cells at the jail were refurbished for the purpose of preventing suicide attempts in the future. However, guards performing their duties are required to prevent determined inmates from taking their own lives. Less than two years after the series of suicides detailed above, two inmates managed to commit suicide in the jail within a week of one another.

In Texas and elsewhere in the U.S., it remains clear that reforms are needed to prevent inmates from committing suicide.

–Guest Contributor