Suicide is the Number One Cause of Death in Oregon and Washington Jails

Date:  11-12-2019 During the same tracking period, Northwest prisons suicides were at 6 percent compared to 47 percent in jails

From Oregon Public Broadcasting: In county jails across the Pacific Northwest, suicide is the single leading cause of inmate deaths. But an analysis by OPB shows the region’s prisons aren’t plagued by the same crisis. Between 2008 and 2018, suicide accounted for 47% of jail deaths with a known cause in Oregon and Washington, according to an investigation by OPB, KUOW and the Northwest News Network. A new analysis shows suicides in Northwest prisons during the same time period are a fraction — just 6% — of deaths in those facilities. The discrepancy between suicides in jails and prisons not only points to the scale of the suicide epidemic in the region’s county jails, but also the challenges local jail officials face in trying to keep people safe as they wrestle with issues like substance use disorders and mental illness. Experts say prisons also have a lower suicide rate, in part, because there’s less uncertainty about an inmate’s future compared to when a person is first arrested and jailed. Continue reading >>>