Space_Soup
Veteran
- Jul 6, 2019
- 5
I've been visiting this site for about 11 months now, and something I haven't come across is a correctional officer's experience with suicides in prison. More specifically, inmates committing suicide. Well, I'm a former correctional officer with five years of dealing with inmates and I just wanted to shed some light at how much I envy their ability to just do what I cannot no matter how much I try. I quit that job over a year ago, but during those five years I would estimate probably about 2-3 suicide attempts per month. Mostly via hanging and rarely cutting of the wrists. Those are the only two methods attempted by inmates at the facility I worked at. Anyways to keep this as short as possible, we lost just about every inmate to suicide by hanging. When it happened on my shift, we all responded to the call after our units were locked down. I always tried to see where exactly the inmates placed the bedsheet (sometimes torn at the edges of the sheet to make a thin ligature, sometimes the whole bedsheet was used) around their neck and it was always right under their chin, above their Adam's apple. Always partial hanging, bending at the knees with the knot directly at the back of the neck. Earlier I stated that I envy them and I do. I have tired partial hanging about 25 times, trying to get myself in that exact same position, and still cannot do it. It pisses me off. I don't understand it. On another note, during those five years we lost six officers - five by suicide via a 9mm shot to the head, one non suicide by a spider bite.
