Lindsay Hayes, a jail suicide expert and project director for the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, a private organization that has conducted prison suicide studies for the U.S. Justice Department, said 46 days is too long to be on any level of suicide watch without daily mental health treatment.
The suicide of a Buncombe County Jail inmate who hanged himself over the weekend raises multiple questions, including the most obvious: Why did a prisoner who had threatened suicide have access to a bed sheet?
The latest suicide in a mountain jail illustrates the difficulty in monitoring suicidal inmates and preventing suicides.
