Category: City Jails|County Jails|Custodial Death|Suicide|Texas Commission on Jail Standards

How Can Jails Prevent Inmate Suicides?

In city and county jails in the U.S., suicide is the leading cause of death. When correctional officers have a good understanding of suicidal behavior and mental impairments, many suicides can be prevented. In Texas, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) requires every jail to implement an approved suicide prevention program.

The Institute for Law Enforcement and Protective Services Excellence offers a Texas course on suicide detection and prevention in jails. The suggested audience is city and county Texas jail staff members who are responsible for the oversight and control of inmates within a jail facility. Topics discussed in the course include the following:

• Admission/booking of inmates
• Factors that influence suicidal behavior
• How to handle a suicide/attempted suicide
• Interacting with suicidal inmates
• Interviewing inmates
• Assessing inmates
• Mental illness
• An overview of jail suicides
• Suicide prevention strategies

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center provides intricate details about jail suicides as part of an initiative to equip corrections professionals to help prevent suicides. Statistics that provide helpful insights are also included. For instance, it’s important for the jailers in local facilities to understand that the inmates as a whole are at extremely high risk. In county and municipal jails, the suicide rate is approximately four times higher than that of the nation’s general population.

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

This website purposes to provide helpful resources to Texas prisoners housed in municipal or county jails. Accusing persons or entities of involvement in wrongdoing is never intended.

–Guest Contributor

When suicides like that of 34-year-old Matthew Glen Wood at the City of Mansfield Jail in Mansfield, Texas, occur in Texas county jails, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) conducts an investigation, as do the Texas Rangers. Due to the importance of suicide prevention, answers are sought by TCJS to the question of whether or not the suicide could have been prevented.

Suicide prevention is the topic explored in the previously mentioned report by the National Institute of Corrections (NICIC)’s, and the following is more information from that report.

Risk Factors

A risk factor is a characteristic found among certain groups of people who have committed suicide more frequently than other people groups. The acrostic “SAD PERSONS” was devised to make it easier to identify the characteristics that could indicate a person’s vulnerability to suicidal thoughts and intentions, as follows:

• Sad
• Age
• Depression
• Previous Suicide Attempt
• Ethanol Abuse
• Rational Thought Loss
• Social Support Lacking
• No Spouse
• Sickness

The following are characteristics of high-risk inmates:

• The very young and very old
• Male
• Previously or currently at risk for suicide
• Previous attempts at suicidal
• Current intoxication
• No family
• A recent relationship breakup
• Single, divorced, and widowed
• Chronic health problems
• Unable to solve problems

See Part 1 and Part 2 of this three-part series.

All of this site’s posts are intended as helpful resources for prisoners and former Texas jail inmates. Implying wrongs on the part of persons or institutions is never intended on this website.

–Guest Contributor

Recommendations to enhance suicide prevention made to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) continue below. Those that follow, however, aren’t necessarily the type suited to regulation and oversight:

When inmates are going through periods of high risk, increase awareness of those individuals and heighten suicide prevention procedures. Examples of high-risk periods include the days that precede and follow court appearances, admission into segregation, and anniversaries.

Expand the reporting requirements on custodial deaths to include the following:

• Had the inmate been identified as a suicide risk? This will provide a better understanding as to the degree of success as far as intake screening and identifying suicidal inmates. Policy implications differ depending on whether the failure is occurring at the identification level or at the prevention level.
• Provide more details on the detention status of suicide victims. It is suggested in suicide literature that profiles differ between pretrial inmates and sentenced inmates. Concerning inmates that have been sentenced, it is helpful to know the length of the sentence and the proximity of the death date to the sentencing date. This would help to determine how much of a role sentencing has in provoking suicidal behavior.

To learn more, see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5 of this ongoing series. The next segment reveals some practices that should be avoided in the mission to prevent custodial suicides.

This website is intended to help current and former inmates in city and county jails in Texas and their families. It is never meant on this site to imply that impropriety has occurred on the part of any person or institution.

–Guest Contributor

Recommendations for enhanced suicide prevention methods made to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) continue below.

Continually Monitor Suicide Statistics

In each Texas jail, TCJS should continually monitor the total number of suicides and re-evaluate compliance in jails with a high incident rate. Troubled jails should be provided with referrals to experts on suicide prevention for the purpose of identifying practices and policies that may be contributing to the problem.

• In one particular Texas county jail, six prisoners committed suicide within a one-year period, which was three times the national average at the time. The following year, the number of suicides in that same jail was five. In the subsequent year, there were three custodial suicides at that county jail. It was during that third year that the county sought assistance from an outside source, that being an expert in suicide prevention. TCJS is encouraged to have vigilance in tracking Texas custodial suicides and in taking the steps necessary to identify and address ineffective policies for the purpose of avoiding further suicides.

The recommendations that follow are not necessarily suited to regulation and oversight by TCJS. However, they should be considered as an outline for more effectively combatting custodial suicides more generally.

Increase Communication and Interaction

TCJS was advised to increase communication and interaction between the following entities to avoid preventable suicides:

• Mental health staff and jail staff
• Jail staff and arresting officers
• Inmates and jail staff

See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 of this ongoing series to learn more.

This website purposes to provide assistance to inmates in city and county jails in Texas, whether current or former prisoners, and their families. It is never meant on this site to suggest that wrongs on the part of any individual or entity have occurred.

–Guest Contributor