Preventing Suicide in Lock-up
This is a good news/bad news story. First the bad news: Last year, 44 of the 164,000 inmates in California prisons committed suicide---nearly twice as many as the 26 who took their lives in 2004, and almost double the national average for suicides in prisons. (Yet another un-cheery bellweather re: the overall health of the golden state’s correctional institutions.)
Now the good news: In a first-of-its-kind "Brother's Keeper" program, for the past 15 months a group of long-term San Quentin inmates have been learning to spot danger signs in fellow prisoners, in addition to being taught suicide prevention techniques. When the group graduated their course last week, they received lavish praise from SQ Warden Robert Ayers who said he hoped the program would expand, writes KRISTEN BENDER of the San Mateo County Times.