Revisit suicide policies

Jail has seen too many deaths to keep status quo

The chairman of Allegheny County’s Jail Oversight Board has balked at paying about $18,000 for a study to assess the facility’s suicideprevention protocols.

With seven suicides at the jail in three years, it’s pretty clear that the policies in place now aren’t working. At least they’re not working anymore. A review is needed, though it doesn’t necessarily have to be done by the expert whose name has been floated.

Inmate advocate Marion Damick proposed that the board retain Lindsay Hayes, project director at the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives in Mansfield, Mass., to conduct the review.

However, Common Pleas Judge David Cashman, the board’s chairman, asserted that the current policies were developed several years ago by Mr. Hayes. Among other concerns about the proposal, Judge Cashman said he didn’t want to spend $18,000 only to reinvent the wheel or be told the jail should keep doing what it’s doing.

He’s missing the obvious. With so many deaths in recent years, the jail can’t afford to keep doing what it’s doing. Although the jail has revisited prevention policies after at least some of the deaths, the suicides have kept coming. Something more, or new, must be done.

Mr. Hayes is well regarded, but if board members want to survey the field for other consultants, that’s fine. While $18,000 may be well below the sum that triggers a formal bidding process under state or county law, it always make sense to get a number of quotes to see who might do the best work at the best price. Perhaps other county jails could recommend someone they’ve worked with before.

Judge Cashman questioned whether the study should be funded from the inmate welfare fund, a local foundation or another source. That’s a minor detail that should be easily settled; $18,000 is a small sum in the scheme of things and, as Ms. Damick pointed out, inmates’ lives certainly are worth the investment.

The number of suicides in America has surged nationwide in recent years, and suicide was the top cause of death in “local jails” from 2000 to 2014, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Jails have to keep working on a solution, however elusive one may be. Allegheny County needs to go back to the drawing board and see if it can achieve the breakthrough that will save lives here and around the country.