'The United States is in the midst of a prison suicide epidemic.' Via latimesopinion:
The New York City medical examiner’s ruling that sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in jail has prompted a lot of hand-wringing about conditions in the facility where he was held. But if the nation had been paying attention, no one would have been particularly surprised by what happened.
In 2017 and 2018, Alabama prisons reported 15 suicides during a 15-month period. Incarcerated men were found hanging from windows, cell doors, light fixtures, vents. One man jumped to his death from a second-floor cellblock. At least 30 people have killed themselves during the last five years while in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections.
MHM Correctional Services, the for-profit provider of mental health care in Alabama prisons at the time Wallace died, had previously recommended that he be transferred to a psychiatric hospital, but that never happened. Those are questions that should be asked about every in-custody suicide. We should also ask how authorities determined it was time to remove someone from suicide watch. What suicide risk assessment was used? Was the decision appropriate given the assessment? And, perhaps most important, what follow-up care did someone receive after the prison decided the risk of suicide was past?
Ford had attempted suicide nine months before. The prison put him on suicide watch, then returned him two days later to the same cell where he had tried to hang himself. The cell had not been cleaned and still had a noose hanging where Ford had tied it during his suicide attempt.
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