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One part of the jail system that may be most problematic and in need of a change to me would be the way they handle suicides, and their preventative strategies. There are more suicides in jails than in prisons or in the general population. Almost half of the suicides occur in the first week of an inmates stay. Most of the time once the inmate passes the first-week mark they are less likely to commit suicide. There are many factors that go into why so many suicides could/ would take place in such a high-security facility, or so you would think. One example of a factor that could lead to an increase in suicide rates in jails could be that there are high proportions of inmates that are mentally ill, about 44% of inmates have mental issues. The video that was shown in class involving the inmate who had withdrawal and passed away in the cell due to the lack of security just shows another example of why suicides happen frequently in jails. I think that if the jails were able to accommodate inmates with the help they needed to keep them stable and healthy no matter what condition they were in, that would cause the rate of suicides to decrease. As well as making sure all possible weapons and objects that could potentially cause harm to be removed from all cells. A more intense security system is the first change facilities need to make to decrease the suicide rates in prison.
Brooke's Blog 
I agree with your argument about high suicide rates in jails. One major factor to me as well would be the lack of supervision of inmates. Facilities like these are meant for inmates to be under the supervision of authority since on the outside they couldn’t do right on their own. So why is it that when these inmates go in they are more prone to taking their own lives away? Facilities also need to enforce the removal of all possible items that individuals can use to harm themselves, we see in many cases where facilities do not enforce these particular rules. For example, Sandra Bland’s case -a 28 year-old African American female who was pulled over in Texas for a traffic violation who was then arrested and place into Waller County Jail. The facility claimed that Bland hung herself with a plastic trash bag the weekend of her arrest. Throughout the investigation authorities discovered that workers in the facility were filling out the time slot of checking on inmates before even doing so. This proves the lack of supervision and removal of suicidal objects within facilities. So definitely these are focuses jails should take into consideration to reduce the high percentage in suicide rates.
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