The New York City medical examiner’s ruling that sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in jail has prompted a lot of hand-wringing about conditions in the facility where he was held. But if the nation had been paying attention, no one would have been particularly surprised by what happened.
The United States is in the midst of a prison suicide epidemic. In 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicides accounted for about 1.6% of overall U.S. deaths. That same year, the latest for which Bureau of Justice Statistics have been released, suicides accounted for about 4% of deaths in federal prisons, about 7% of deaths in state prisons, and a whopping 35% of deaths in local jails.
Alabama, where I live, is at the center of the crisis. The state prison suicide rate here is nearly triple the national average, and there’s evidence the numbers are even worse than we know.
In 2017 and 2018, Alabama prisons reported 15 suicides during a 15-month period. Incarcerated men were found hanging from windows, cell doors, light fixtures, vents. One man jumped to his death from a second-floor cellblock. At least 30 people have killed themselves during the last five years while in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections.
The issue of suicide has been brought front and center in a landmark class-action lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program and private attorneys over the state’s prison mental healthcare, which a federal judge called “horrendously inadequate.”
It is believed he committed suicide because a state appointed examiner said so…And they don’t have an invested interests of the Government as well as a clear and certain bias towards sex offenders !
Well…his death leaned more to homicide than suicide, ls say you were on a jury and evidence of his death was presented to you, you know circumstances, guards diddling, cameras jacked up paperwork messed with all he just so happens to end up this or that way ! Now compare how many poopsies happen on professionals shifts…you know the saying … fake heroes like to give….NOT ON MY WATCH !….WELL…YOU CAN say coincidence or something is real smelly around here ! If you look at autopsy reports about multiy neck bones broken like his it is more favorable to say he was murdered rather lean towards suicide !
Anyway this is the biggest Truth….IF PRISONERS ARE COMMITTING SUICIDE JUST LIKE HATERS O OTHER PEOPLE INVOLVED WITH PUSHING PEOPLE TO ULTIMATE DISPARITY SHOULD AND MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE…WHY ?
Because the Government must be accountable….the law is meant to be a Teacher not a Master Butcher…Health and Safety as well as Correction is Mandatory, not kinda sorta a Hit and Miss thing as if Human life doesn’t matter !
Good Luck Self-righteous People !
Hello everyone.
I thought and fretted and thought more about just how to add a level of credulity to this article. This, based on my own experience while detained and having a suicide take place on the block I was on.
For me, and this is just MY view; what is saw changed my life forever. It broke me. I cried for days for the Man who chose a path of Suicide. I still many years later remember every single thing about Him.
He was on the “upper tier” and allegedly in for an allegation of a *ex Offense. I saw him a lot. He was broken and frightened, and clearly crying all the time. His Celly, a supposedly standup Fella was allegedly Raping him multiple times a day as a retribution. Allegedly too he was on suicide watch, but not isolated. Commissary would not sell him shoe-laces, nor was he allowed them for obvious reasons. But, commissary had no issue selling a 12ft extension cord to him which is what he hung himself with.
When he was found by a guard, and it was only within 10 mins since the last cell check, he was hanging by that extension cord. The guards and medical worked on him trying to bring him back. I could see from my cell window directly up to the upper tier to the cell directly across from me their efforts. For 30 mins a variety of medical personnel and guards worked to try and revive him. Must have been 30 staff involved. Every time they “shocked” him with the paddles, I could see his whole body jerk. There were guards in tears. Medical staff in tears. I was in tears.
But there were other detainees who LOVED IT. They were whooping and hollering and loving the fact that this Man chose death.
This man was carried by staff down to a stretcher that was 15 feet from my cell door window and placed there on his back. His eyes were wide open. There were tears on both sides of his face and still in his eyes. The tears sparkled like diamonds. I could clearly see him. However the look on his face was one of fear and terror. It was not a face I will ever forget. Vacant and horrified, and in so much pain. Twisted and so full of horror. It changed my life forever. I wanted to hold him, I wanted to say something, I wanted to rip the clothing from my body in protest of his death.
There was the “standard” investigation. Of course the final report was that he was “pronounced” at the hospital. Well, NO. He was dead inside the cell block.
I never knew much about him. I tried one time to talk to him at “pill line” as I saw he was so in despair. He was terrified. He didn’t reply to my asking “how are you”.
I think about him often. I know he left behind some family. But beyond that I don’t know much. But I will never forget his face. I hope that in some spiritual sense that his soul travelled to a safe place. But the look on his face, laying there on the gurney, eyes terrified, and face contorted makes me doubt that.
This has been my PERSONAL experience with this subject. It haunts me. It injects itself into my dreams a lot. I feel that if I could have just talked to him, maybe just maybe I could have shown this man friendship and love and gave him hope. I didn’t know him. But I carry that burden; either right or wrong.
In summary: He took his own life alone. By himself, and in utter despair. There but for the Grace of God Walk I.
Thank you for letting me share.