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NY: SPECIAL REPORT: Prison suicide rates rise; solitary confinement adds to risk

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

SPECIAL REPORT: Prison suicide rates rise; solitary confinement adds to risk Mary Beth Pfeiffer ? Poughkeepsie Journal ? October 17, 2010 Just days from her 23rd birthday in June and six months before possible release from prison, Danaroy Countryman did something that an unusually high number of state prison inmates have done this year. She hanged herself in her cell. Countryman's suicide at a Westchester County prison is one of 17 in state lockups so far in 2010 ? 42 percent above the annual average for the past decade and, as of mid-October, a 70 percent increase over all of 2009. The rise in prison suicides comes three years after the state settled a federal lawsuit over prison suicides and after changes that officials say ? and lawyers for inmates generally agree ? have improved state prisons for inmates, such as Countryman, who suffer serious mental illness...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on October 17, 2010 (boomark / email).