Young Male Prisoners in a Young Offenders’ Institution: Their Contact With Suicidal Behaviour by Others

The aim of this study was to find how many young people detained in a Young Offenders’ Institution have had contact with another’s suicide attempt & to test for association between this & their own self-harming behaviours. 151 young men surveyed reported that they knew someone who had attempted suicide, 48 of them knowing someone who had thereby died. The contact with a non-fatal suicide attempted by others was associated with own self-harm; contact with completed suicide had no such association. (24 refs)