Report: Jail suicide is the leading cause of death for US inmates

Suicides in local jails are the leading cause of death for U.S. inmates, according to a recent report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).

More than a third — 34 percent — of all inmate deaths at local jails are self-inflicted, and the rate is increasing, according to the BJS report released Tuesday. Covering all causes of mortality, the report found that jails have a higher suicide rate than prisons, and many of those who kill themselves have not even been convicted of a crime.

The report comes after several recent high-profile deaths of black women arrested and taken to jail. An autopsy recently ruled that Sandra Bland, who was taken into police custody on July 10 after a routine traffic stop, killed herself. Bland was held at the Waller County jail in Hempstead, Texas and found dead three days after she was arrested. The FBI and the Texas Ranger Division are investigating her death, which friends and family contend was not suicide.

On July 14, just days after being arrested for allegedly stealing a cellphone, Kindra Chapman, 18, was also found dead in a jail holding cell in Homewood, Alabama. Local authorities have said that her death was also a suicide.

The report shows 46 self-inflicted deaths per 100,000 inmates at local jails, which are usually operated at the county level. At state prisons, 5.5 percent of deaths — 15 per 100,000 inmates — were ruled a suicide, which is just slightly above the national average of 12.6 per 100,000 people in the general U.S. population.

An earlier report by the BJS found that small jails have a higher suicide rate than large jails, noting “the lower rate of suicide in large jails may reflect the capacity of these jails to provide a variety of suicide prevention measures.”

A U.S. Department of Justice report on jail suicides stated that from an inmate perspective, the jail environment can “enhance suicidal behavior: fear of the unknown, distrust of an authoritarian environment, perceived lack of control over the future, isolation from family and significant others, shame of incarceration, and perceived dehumanizing aspects of incarceration.” This can often be compounded by drug or alcohol problems or other destabilizing personal factors, according to the report.

The rise in jail suicides is linked in part to an increasing number of detainees who have mental health issues, said Steve J. Martin, a correctional consultant and attorney.

Jails are not equipped to deal with mentally impaired detainees, particularly those with serious mental illnesses at risk for suicide and other disciplinary factors, added Martin, who has served as an expert in federal court. In prisons, meanwhile, mental health evaluations are standard.

He believes that one way to immediately reduce jail suicides is to transfer mentally ill or other vulnerable people from confined settings to specialized health settings, limiting their exposure to the jail environment.

The high rate of suicide in jails – as opposed to prisons – is also related to the “shock of confinement,” Martin said. Inmates in a prison have almost certainly had experience with the criminal justice system previous to incarceration, whereas someone in a jail may be on an unsettling first encounter with such a setting.

To combat the growing suicide epidemic, Martin said there needs to be a greater understanding of “the experience and dynamics of the arrest from the detainee’s perspective.”