By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
Associated Press Writer
LUCASVILLE, Ohio- Troubled in love, prison inmate Garry Owens wrote a suicide note with a suicide-resistant pen, then asphyxiated himself with a bedsheet laced through his jail cell window.
Owens was the fifth Ohio prisoner to kill himself this year, following a record 11 deaths in 2004 and four in 2003.
The states of Ohio, Connecticut and Iowa have dealt recently with sharp rises in inmate suicides. Prison systems have responded by ordering more frequent guard patrols, replacing lace-up shoes with slippers, increasing the recreation time for prisoners in mental health units and removing fixtures in cells that inmates could use to hang themselves, such as smoke detector covers.
State officials in Connecticut also asked courts, prosecutors and police to tell prisons more about an incoming inmate’s mental health.
“Some of the people that end up committing suicide show very little in terms of indicators,” said prisons spokesman Brian Garnett. “The more you can delve in what’s in their head and their background, the better chance you have of protecting them.”
In Connecticut, where jails and prisons are operated under the same system, there have been 13 suicides since April 2004, including four this year.
Four inmates committed suicide in two years in Iowa on a new unit for mentally ill prisoners, raising immediate concerns since the unit was meant to improve life for such inmates, said Dr. Ed O’Brien, Corrections Department medical director.
Among several changes, the prison system began checking suicidal inmates every five minutes instead of every 15 minutes, searching cells for material inmates could use to attempt suicide and training staff to better recognize suicidal behavior.
Consultants caution prison systems against ever letting their guard down against suicides.
“You’re constantly putting out fires, dealing with one crisis after another, so after a period of time, when inmate suicides are no longer a daily concern or a daily crisis, then a system will turn to something else that happens to be on the front burner,” said Lindsay Hayes, a prisons consultant Ohio hired last year.
Officials at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility say Owens, 31, was distraught over the end of a relationship with another inmate and his death was probably not preventable. One guard was fired and two more are being investigated over whether they monitored him closely enough.
In 2002, 166 inmates in state prisons committed suicide, or about 5 percent of the 3,101 inmate deaths that year, according to the most recent data available from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. About 6 percent of inmate deaths in 2001 were suicides.
On average, the suicide rate is 13 to 15 deaths per 100,000, compared with 11 deaths per 100,000 in the general community, Hayes said.
Prisoners most at risk for suicide include new inmates, those with mental health problems and those segregated as punishment _ in a smaller cell, with no recreation time or personal belongings.
In New York State, the country’s fourth-largest prison system, two of the eight inmates who killed themselves last year were in segregated cells. In 2003, four of 14 inmates who committed suicide were in segregated cells.
“Just like in the outside world, there are people whose suicides are long-term decisions, and there are people whose suicides are snap decisions,” said James Flateau, spokesman for the New York Department of Correctional Services.
At the prison consultant’s recommendation, Ohio in April began screening segregated inmates with previously identified mental health problems, as well as inmates in protective custody, for suicidal tendencies. Inmates whose condition raises concerns are placed on suicide watch, which can include 24-hour-a-day monitoring.
Owens was in a cell by himself for attacking his ex-lover as the two passed in lines on the way to lunch, said Ed Voorhies, warden at the maximum-security prison. Owens had been serving a sentence of 15 years to life for a 1993 slaying.
The next evening, on June 4, sitting in Cell 13 on the north wing of Lucasville’s J2 block, Owens wrote a note addressed to his ex-boyfriend on a prisoner complaint form. He used a short, bendable pen designed to keep inmates from hurting themselves.
Voorhies said Owens then threaded a bedsheet through the bars of the small window in the door of his 6- by 8 1/2-foot (1.8 by 2.6 meter) institutional green cell, wrapped the sheet around his neck and dropped down, strangling himself.
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On the Net:
U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/
Prison Reform Advocacy Center: http://www.prisonreform.com/