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As inmate suicides spike, troubling questions raised about handling of mentally ill in nation's loca
BREAKING
As inmate suicides spike, troubling questions raised about handling of mentally ill in nation's local jails
By SHARON COHEN and NORA ECKERT, Associated Press and Capital News Service 1 hr ago | 12 min to read
....
Read the headlines on any given day across America and you'll find evidence of a crisis roiling the criminal justice system: "Suicide leading cause of death in Utah jails." ''San Diego County inmate suicide rate 'staggeringly' high." ''Attempted suicides at Cuyahoga County Jail tripled over three-year span."
Stories like Fillmore's have been told time and again, and yet the deaths continue in jails large and small.
Suicide, long the leading cause of death in U.S. jails, hit a high of 50 deaths for every 100,000 inmates in 2014, the latest year for which the government has released data. That's 2½ times the rate of suicides in state prisons and about 3½ times that of the general population.
It's a problem commonly blamed on the mere fact that more mentally ill people are landing behind bars, a trend that started after state psychiatric hospitals began closing in the 1970s and promised alternatives failed to emerge. More recently, jails have been overwhelmed with those addicted to opioids or meth, many of whom wrestle with depression and withdrawal.
Increasingly, troubling questions are being raised about the treatment of inmates in many jails, possible patterns of neglect — and whether better care could have stopped suicides.
....
___
Cohen, an AP national writer, reported from Chicago. She may be reached at Twitter https://twitter.com/scohenAP or scohen@ap.org. Eckert is a reporter with the University of Maryland's Capital News Service. Also contributing to the data analysis were Capital News Service reporters Riin Aljas, James Crabtree-Hannigan, Elliott Davis, Theresa Diffendal, Jessica Feldman, Hannah Gaskill, Samantha Hawkins and Roxanne Ready.
As inmate suicides spike, troubling questions raised about handling of mentally ill in nation's local jails
By SHARON COHEN and NORA ECKERT, Associated Press and Capital News Service 1 hr ago | 12 min to read
....
Read the headlines on any given day across America and you'll find evidence of a crisis roiling the criminal justice system: "Suicide leading cause of death in Utah jails." ''San Diego County inmate suicide rate 'staggeringly' high." ''Attempted suicides at Cuyahoga County Jail tripled over three-year span."
Stories like Fillmore's have been told time and again, and yet the deaths continue in jails large and small.
Suicide, long the leading cause of death in U.S. jails, hit a high of 50 deaths for every 100,000 inmates in 2014, the latest year for which the government has released data. That's 2½ times the rate of suicides in state prisons and about 3½ times that of the general population.
It's a problem commonly blamed on the mere fact that more mentally ill people are landing behind bars, a trend that started after state psychiatric hospitals began closing in the 1970s and promised alternatives failed to emerge. More recently, jails have been overwhelmed with those addicted to opioids or meth, many of whom wrestle with depression and withdrawal.
Increasingly, troubling questions are being raised about the treatment of inmates in many jails, possible patterns of neglect — and whether better care could have stopped suicides.
....
___
Cohen, an AP national writer, reported from Chicago. She may be reached at Twitter https://twitter.com/scohenAP or scohen@ap.org. Eckert is a reporter with the University of Maryland's Capital News Service. Also contributing to the data analysis were Capital News Service reporters Riin Aljas, James Crabtree-Hannigan, Elliott Davis, Theresa Diffendal, Jessica Feldman, Hannah Gaskill, Samantha Hawkins and Roxanne Ready.
