Recently Released Report on Federal Inmate Suicides

The latest issue of the Weekly Checklist of Canadian Government Publications includes A Three Year Review of Federal Inmate Suicides(2011–2014) by the Office of the Correctional Investigator.

The Investigator acts as the ombudsman for inmates incarcerated in federal institutions.

From the Introduction:

"The conclusions reached in this report are supported by a review of the current literature on risk factors for prison suicide, the Office’s assessment of CSC’s suicide awareness and prevention strategy, as well as findings and recommendations from post-incident reviews and investigations. As a synthesis of the findings and lessons learned derived from these sources, this report aims to identify persistent gaps, risks and impediments to CSC’s current suicide prevention measures. The report points to a number of organizational weaknesses and calls for improvement in specific areas of CSC’s suicide awareness and prevention program:

1. Suicide risk screening and identification (pre-indicators).
2. Monitoring and management of suicidal behaviour.
3. Physical infrastructure vulnerabilities (e.g. access to the means and methods of prison suicide, including in-cell suspension points).
4. Quality of the internal post-incident investigative process.
5. Continuity of care concerns.
6. Communication and information sharing issues."

The Weekly Checklist includes a listing of titles made available by the Parliament of Canada, federal departments, and Statistics Canada to the Depository Services Program for distribution to a network of Depository Libraries in Canada and abroad.