Reduction of Suicides in Jails and Lockups Through Situational Crime Prevention: Addressing the Needs of a Transient Population

The problem of jail suicide has been widely publicized in many articles and corrections reports, yet seldom is this work organized in a framework. The current paper organizes the existing literature on suicide in jails and lockups within Clarke’s (1997) framework of situational prevention and Clarke and Lester’s (1989) work on suicide prevention. Due to the transient nature of lockup and jail populations, long-term strategies such as counseling or other programs may not be feasible. The opportunity-reducing techniques presented in this paper are tailored toward institutions that are faced with helping inmates through temporary periods of despair. Suggestions are discussed for reducing opportunity while attempting to avoid further isolation and depression of inmates.