Really shocking numbers on jail suicides in a new BJS report out this week: More than 75% of jail suicides involve people who had not been convicted of a crime. Almost half had been held for a week or less at the time they died. sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/…
Between 2015-2019, more than half of all people who died by suicide in jails were charged with nonviolent offenses. Among the most common charges: probation or parole violation, drug possession, and theft. bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/…
My former colleagues @dliebelson & @ryanjreilly did some incredible reporting on jail deaths in 2016, a year after Sandra Bland’s death in a TX jail. At the time we were operating with almost no official data. We had to cobble together from local reports. highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/sa…
@dliebelson @ryanjreilly A huge driver of this problem is, of course, cash bail. The vast majority of jail suicides continue to involve people who are legally innocent. They’re only in jail because they can’t afford to post bail. huffpost.com/entry/cash-bai…
None of this is to say that it’s OK when legally guilty people are subjected to these horrific and inhumane conditions. We should be outraged that jails so routinely fail to provide for the safety of the people in their care, regardless of why they’re incarcerated.
But it’s just hard to fathom that in a 5-year period, more than 100 people died by suicide in jails after being booked on simple drug possession charges. The system is so clearly designed to punish broken people by taking them even further past their breaking point.
I’d add that suicides are only one reflection of the cruelty & neglect associated w/ jail deaths. In the past few years, dozens of people have died in jail because they’re in withdrawal. These aren’t overdoses. People are effectively dying of dehydration. cbsnews.com/news/heroin-wi…
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