With headlines highlighting a new salacious scandal or incident of extreme violence at Rikers Island seemingly every day, the de Blasio administration this week turned the spotlight on a grant-funded initiative aimed at lowering the rates of suicide and self-harm incidents among inmates in the nation’s largest jail system.
Between 2007 and 2011, there were eight suicides and 2,514 incidents of self-harm at Rikers Island. Funded by a $400,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice, the city Department of Correction, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and the Vera Institute of Justice will embark on a three-year project to standardize review of instances of inmate suicide or self-harm, and document what can be done to reduce the likelihood of such instances happening again.
“The Health Department is responsible for providing medical and mental health services for the patients inside the city’s jails, and we always are looking to enhance the work we do,” said Dr. Mary Bassett, DOHMH commissioner. “Suicide is a tragedy, and we know it also is preventable. We look forward to working together to identify high-risk settings, so we can help reduce self-harm and suicide.”
With guidance from national experts in corrections and correctional health care, the project will:analyze components of the city’s existing procedures for reviewing suicides in the jail and extend them to instances of serious self-harm; design a process that improves collaboration between DOHMH staff in conducting reviews and addressing systemic problems; incorporate best practices from community medicine to develop a more comprehensive, process that can be replicated nationwide for reviewing incidents of fatal and non-fatal self-harm in correctional settings and developing corrective action plans.
“This breakthrough initiative makes science an integral part of how we diagnose and fix any systemic failures,” said Elizabeth Glazer, director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.
By Michael V. Cusenza
