The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) failed to prevent 187 inmate suicides from 2014 to 2021, according to a report published Monday by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Evaluation and Inspections Division.
The report reviewed 344 deaths over the course of the seven years, nearly 200 of which were ruled as suicides and found a “combination of recurring policy violations and operational failures contributed to inmate suicides.” The incidents spiked in 2018 at nearly 30 suicides and remained in the mid to low twenties until 2021 when the numbers climbed back up to over 30. (RELATED: Nearly 20 States Are Weighing Legislation That Would Make Assisted Suicide Legal)
Almost all of the suicides were among male patients, 97%, and 72% of those inmates had been marked with a Mental Health Care Level 1 status, which puts inmates at the lowest risk for mental or medical issues, according to the report. The DOJ listed a number of failures on the part of the BOP, one of which was that prisons were often seriously deficient in staff and unable to monitor at-risk inmates.
“Suicide accounted for just over half of the 344 inmate deaths that we reviewed,” the report reads. “Specifically, deficiencies in staff completion of inmate assessments have prevented some institutions from adequately identifying and proactively addressing inmate suicide risks.”
SAN QUENTIN, CA – JUNE 08: Branden Terrel walks down the hallway near his cell on June 8, 2017, in San Quentin, California. Branden Terrel was sentenced to 11 years in state prison for the 2012 stabbing death of one of his friends. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Nearly 160 of the suicides were by hanging, 17 via drug overdose and 8 from lacerations, according to the report.
Out of the total number of suicides, 102 of them were while the inmates were in single-cell confinement, also known as solitary confinement, with the most incidents again in 2018 at 18 and 2021 at 21, according to the report. The DOJ explains that the Administrator of the Reentry Services Division’s (RSD) Psychology Services Branch in 2020 told the department that putting inmates in single cells “facilitates inmate suicide.”
The DOJ also found “numerous” problems with “Mental Health Care Level assignments for some inmates who later died by suicide” and that some staff did not follow up with “inmates in distress” despite knowing they were a suicide risk. The report claimed that some staff “did not sufficiently conduct required inmate rounds” for nearly a third of the inmates that ended up committing suicide.
The report also found multiple instances in which the bureau staff failed to conduct thorough searches of inmates’ cells. One inmate was able to hide “an excessive number of laundry sorting straps,” while another had over 1,000 pills in their cell, despite the prison staff claiming that they found no contraband the day before.
“Such deficiencies helped foster conditions in which inmates were able to advance their suicidal ideations and created increased opportunities for them to die by suicide,” the report reads.
A BOP spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the bureau is “committed to suicide prevention” and appreciates the “thorough evaluation conducted by the OIG and acknowledges the tragic nature of unexpected deaths among those in our care.”
“In response to the OIG’s recommendations, FBOP acknowledges and concurs with the need for improvements, such as enhancing Mental Health Care Level designations. We are dedicated to implementing these changes to ensure the safety and well-being of those in our custody,” the spokesperson said.
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