Suicide more likely after brushes with the law

By Frederik Joelving

NEW YORK | Tue Feb 8, 2011 5:19pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who come into contact with the criminal justice system are at increased risk of suicide, a Danish study shows, even if they're found not guilty.

The findings expand on US research showing that in the 1980s, jail inmates were nine times as likely to kill themselves as the general population.

In 2007, the US suicide rate was about 11 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. That rate is only slightly higher than the rate in Denmark.
"This study is a new contribution in that it puts the criminal justice system on the agenda in terms of suicide risk factors," said Roger Webb, who studies suicide prevention at the University of Manchester in the UK and worked on the new results.

"What we have shown is a high risk of suicide across the spectrum of people who have been in contact with the criminal justice system," he told Reuters Health. "This includes people who have never been held in custody, and even people who were never found guilty."

Other risk factors include physical or sexual abuse as well as depression and other mental illnesses.

The new findings are based on data on more than 27,000 Danish men and women who committed suicide between 1981 and 2006. For comparison, the research team also studied more than half a million people of the same age and gender who were still alive.

About a third of the men who'd killed themselves had been charged with a criminal offense of some sort -- from speeding to homicide. In the comparison group, only a quarter had ever been charged.

For women, nearly one of every eight who committed suicide had been in contact with the criminal justice system, compared to one in 20 of the women who were still alive.

Of course, Webb said, people who brush up against the law tend to have a troubled history.
"It's a group of people who have quite complex needs, people who come from deprived communities or dysfunctional families, which puts them at higher risk of suicide to begin with," he said.

But even taking into account any admission to a psychiatric hospital, and factors such as poverty and education, the suicide risk was increased by more than half for men and nearly doubled among women with criminal charges.

That doesn't necessarily mean the encounter with the law caused any suicides. But Webb, whose results appear in the Archives of General Psychiatry, said the experience might in principle have pushed some people over the edge.

"You've got people who are already quite vulnerable -- they have alcohol problems or mental illness that might never have been properly treated," he said. "And then on top of this there is the stress and uncertainty of passing through the criminal justice system."

He said the authorities should be aware of the increased suicide risk, which peaks just after people land in prison and immediately after their release, according to earlier research.
However, before changing policies, more research is needed, Webb added.

SOURCE: bit.ly/e5bqSD Archives of General Psychiatry, online February 7, 2011.