The San Francisco Chronicle (12/28, Fagone, Cassidey) reported, “The suicide rate among California prisoners has climbed five years in a row and rose in 2019 to the highest level in at least three decades…according to experts, advocates for prisoners and the state’s top corrections official.” As of Tuesday, 36 people this year had died by suicide inside the state’s prisons, amounting to “a rate of 28.7 suicides per 100,000 prisoners – an increase over last year’s rate of 26.3.” Public officials, judges, and experts “say California’s deaths are the result of a system that for decades has failed to provide proper help to the state’s mentally ill prisoners, a population estimated at more than 30,000.”
Related Links:
— “Exclusive: Suicides rise again in California prisons — 36 this year, despite scrutiny, “Jason Fagone and Megan Cassidy, The San Francisco Chronicle, December 30, 2019