Predictors of Suicide in New Generation Jails

• Author: Marissa P. Levy,Christine Tartaro
• DOI: 10.3818/JRP.10.1.2008.21
• Date: 01 June 2008
• Published date: 01 June 2008
• Subject Matter: Article

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* Predictors of Suicide in New Generation Jails

Christine Tartaro

Marissa P. Levy

Richard Stockton College of New Jersey

* Abstract

Podular direct supervision jails, also called new generation jails, have been credited

by practitioners and some researchers with reducing violence, stress, and suicide

among inmates. A recent national comparison of these facilities with more tradi-

tional jails revealed that the direct supervision institutions were no less likely than

the other jails to experience inmate suicides. The current study involves a closer

look at the podular direct supervision facilities. The purpose of this study is to

determine which jail characteristics are predictors of suicide. Results indicate that

the jail environment and the number of inmate-inmate assaults are predictors of

jail suicides. Jails that provide an environment that allows inmates to control light-

ing, control entrance and exits of cells, and have materials that reduce echoes were

less likely to report a suicide in 2003 than those that did not offer those features.

Jails with a lower number of inmate-inmate assaults were also less likely to report

a suicide in 2003.

The authors would like to thank Steve Ingley of the American Jail Association for writing

the cover letter for the survey used in this study.

JUSTICE RESEARCH AND POLICY, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2008

© 2008 Justice Research and Statistics Association

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Incarceration is a stressful experience for nearly everyone, and it is especially dif-

f‌icult given that many who are placed in jail are mentally ill or under the inf‌luence

of drugs or alcohol (Davis & Muscat, 1993; Farmer, Felthous, & Holzer, 1996;

Hayes, 1989; Hayes & Rowan, 1988). Even if an inmate is sober and has no his-

tory of mental illness, the stress from incarceration alone can be enough to make

someone contemplate suicide. Off‌icers, case workers, medical staff members, and

counselors who work in jails must supervise and treat inmates who, at various

points in their incarceration, may become suicidal.

Jail suicides are devastating to both the surviving inmates who are reminded

about their own mortality and the harshness of incarcerated life as well as the staff

who are left wondering what they could have done to prevent this tragedy from

happening. Additionally, the administration will likely be closely examined in the

aftermath of a suicide and will probably be named in a civil suit brought by the

victim’s family. The public expects jail off‌icers and administrators to have a rea-

sonable amount of control over a population that has little freedom, and the courts

have expressed their willingness to f‌ind corrections departments liable for their

action or inaction in inmate suicide cases (see Kappeler, 1993; Kappeler, Vaughn,

& Del Carmen, 1991).

Administrators with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) were concerned

about suicide, violence, and vandalism occurring in their Metropolitan Correc-

tional Centers (MCCs) during the 1970s. In response to these problems, the BOP

commissioned architects to design a new jail, resulting in the creation of the podu-

lar direct supervision model, or new generation jail. This jail has been credited by

researchers and practitioners with reducing rates of violence, vandalism, and, of

particular importance for this study, suicide. What follows is a brief history of the

new generation jail.

* Podular Direct Supervision

The f‌irst podular direct supervision jails were opened by the BOP in the mid-1970s

in San Diego, New York, and Chicago. Violent incidents, homosexual rape, and

suicide occurred much less frequently in these newly designed jails than in the

older facilities that were being replaced (Nelson & Davis, 1995; Wener, Frazier,

& Farbstein, 1993). County jails later adopted this model, and by 1995, 147 of

these facilities housing over 70,000 inmates were operational in the United States

(Kerle, 1998). The number of new generation jails listed in the National Institute

of Corrections Direct Supervision Jail Directory increased to nearly 300 by 2000

(Harding, Linke, Van Court, White, & Clem, 2001).

Direct supervision jails look very different than traditional facilities. The insti-

tutions are divided into pods, which are triangular or rectangular areas. The walls

of the pod are lined with cells or rooms, and the center of the pod consists of a day-