The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Don Thompson
The Associated Press
January 3, 2006

SACRAMENTO - A record number of convicts killed themselves in California prisons during 2005 - double the national inmate suicide rate, according to state records.
The trend approaching one suicide each week is triggering new complaints from class-action lawyers that the state is stalling prevention efforts. Prison officials deny delays, saying they thwart the vast majority of suicide attempts.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reported 44 suicides in an inmate population that is at an all-time high - nearly 164,000 - though inmates' attorneys have so far been able to confirm only 41 deaths as suicides. Either figure is up from 26 suicides in 2004, and exceeds the previous record of 36 deaths in 2003.

Using the more conservative estimate, the rate is 27 deaths per 100,000 inmates, compared to a national rate of 14 per 100,000 calculated by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. That rate is falling nationally even as California's rate increases.

The National Center on Institutions and Alternatives puts the nationwide prison suicide rate at about 13 deaths per 100,000, compared to 11 deaths per 100,000 in the general community.

Seventy percent of inmate suicides in California occur in disciplinary isolation units, which reported an astronomical rate of 248 suicides per 100,000 inmates in 2004.

"We try to be there and vigilant," said corrections spokesman J.P. Tremblay. "It's always a tragedy when anybody commits suicide, but we're working hard to try to prevent that. We have made some progress, but it's not going to happen overnight."

Lawyers representing more than 26,000 mentally ill inmates in California are heading back to a Sacramento federal judge Thursday, accusing the state of not training guards quickly enough to provide emergency resuscitation when inmates are found unresponsive. Some prisons have trained fewer than half their guards, said Michael Bien, the lead attorney.

Prison attorneys countered, saying most have trained at least 75 percent of guards, and many are above 90 percent.

Previous prison policy let guards wait for medical staff to arrive: "You could choose not to help someone who was dying at your feet," Bien said.
California officials have balked at replacing overhead air vents in segregation units with vent covers that have smaller openings to prevent inmates from stringing sheets or cords to hang themselves. The department says the smaller vents would restrict air flow, while the inmates' attorneys say the vents are used in hundreds of prisons, including the California Men's Colony and Atascadero State Hospital for the criminally mentally ill.

Inmate attorneys are also objecting to prison proposals to reduce the amount of mental health supervision provided in segregation units.

They hope a federal judge will order a hearing into a 3-year-old prison policy that treats mental illness as a security danger. The mentally ill are often sent to more secure prisons where they are housed with violent inmates and are more frequently locked in their cells with fewer privileges and amenities.