NCJ Number
157204
Date Published
1995
Length
114 pages
Annotation
This monograph on prison suicide reviews the literature and national as well as State standards for prevention and provides the most recent national data on the incidence and rate of prison suicide, effective prison suicide prevention programs, and a discussion of liability issues.
Abstract
Following a literature review and an overview of national and State standards for prison suicide prevention, a chapter provides a 10-year review of prison suicide rates. Profiles of effective suicide prevention programs in State prisons are followed by the presentation of a successful five-step program to prevent suicide in Federal prisons. The courts' role in shaping prison suicide policy is then examined. The monograph concludes that the majority of correctional systems throughout the Nation have not adopted the suicide-prevention standards advocated by either the National Commission on Correctional Health Care or the American Correctional Association. As a result of litigation, however, many States have improved their general conditions of confinement and implemented specific programs designed to improve prison health care, including suicide prevention. The higher rate of prison suicides in 1993 could indicate an upward trend or merely be an aberration. Large-scale prospective studies of prison suicide and empirical studies on the process of custodial suicide are needed. Future success in reducing prison suicides will depend not only on progressive prison administrators' developing comprehensive and operational suicide prevention policies, but also on constant monitoring of policy effects and suicide trends, such that planning and policy constantly counter factors that contribute to suicide attempts. 98 references, a table on prison suicides and rates by State for 1984-92, 14 tables, and appended suicide prevention protocols