Suicide Rate ‘Cause For Concern’

Spokane County Jail officials said Tuesday they will review their suicide-prevention policies following the fourth suicide at the lockup in 13 months.

Murder suspect Robert Wood, 43, hanged himself in his cell in the jail annex Monday morning. Wood was scheduled to go to trial in November on charges that he had strangled his 11-year-old son, Christopher.

Wood’s suicide came two months after Kurtice Andrus, 38, used his pants to hang himself in a holding cell in the jail’s booking area.

Two other men jumped to their deaths from second-floor railings last year.

“Four suicides in a 13-month period would be cause for concern,” said Lindsay Hayes, assistant director for the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, a corrections policy think tank in Massachusetts. “Right now, they have a very high suicide rate.”

How high is unknown.

The state of Washington has no clearinghouse for jail-suicide information. Federal statistics indicate that there were only four jail suicides statewide in 1993, the last year for which figures are available.

Similar-sized Washington counties report that they have had few suicides in their jails during the past 12 months. Pierce County has had two, and Snohomish County one during the past year.

Nationwide, 107 out of every 100,000 inmates commits suicide on an annual basis, nearly nine times the rate of the general population, according to federal statistics.

Most are white males.

Jail commander Capt. Dick Collins said that the recent rash of suicides at the Spokane County Jail is unacceptable, although he is unable to point to a reason for the upswing.

Before last year, only two people killed themselves in the Spokane County Jail during the previous 13 years, corrections officials said.

“When people are in jail, their options are limited, their control is reduced, their future is unpredictable, and they may develop a sense of helplessness,” according to a 1995 federal study titled, “Training Curriculum on Suicide Detection and Prevention in Jails and Lock-ups.”

Collins said he soon will schedule meetings between his staff and the county’s risk management office to talk about ways to make the jail safer.

“We’re going to look at not only what we do after the fact, but what we can do before the fact to maybe prevent some of this,” Collins said.

Extra training for corrections officers in spotting behavior that may suggest suicide will be a key part of any new policy, Collins said.

Right now, jail staff members receive some suicide prevention education during their academy training, but not much after that, he said.

“Due to budget constraints, our current in-service training is restricted to roll call, or about 20 minutes a day,” Collins said.

Hayes suggested several other areas where jail officials should concentrate if they want to curb suicides.

They include intensive screening of inmates during the booking process, better communication between police and corrections officers and intense supervision of potentially suicidal inmates.

“It’s not a completely preventable problem,” Hayes said. “But corrections officials can do things to drastically reduce it.”