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| City Admits Suicide Watch Didn't Prevent Jail Deaths |
| By New York Times |
| Published: 09/26/2003 |
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Two of the six Rikers Island inmates who killed themselves this year were on suicide watch, despite previous public statements by New York City Department of Correction officials to the contrary, an agency spokesman said yesterday. The spokesman, Thomas Antenen, who divulged the mistake, said it occurred because of a miscommunication between Correction Department officials. The two inmates who had been on suicide watch - which requires inmates to be closely monitored by specially trained officers - hanged themselves with bedsheets from ventilation shafts in their cells, Mr. Antenen said. One of the two, Carina Montes, 29, had been housed in the administrative segregation unit of the Rose M. Singer Center, the women's jail at Rikers, on Feb. 6, according to Correction Department records. Ms. Montes had been locked up for 148 days on larceny and parole violation charges records show. The other inmate on suicide watch, Jose Cruz, 48, was being housed at the Contagious Disease Unit cell for a medical condition that department officials, citing privacy laws, would not reveal. Mr. Cruz, arrested on assault charges, had been in jail for 40 days at the time of his death, according to Correction Department records. A third inmate who also hanged himself with a bedsheet this year, Joseph Hughes, 24, was housed in a punitive-segregation unit at Rikers for inmates with mental health problems, Mr. Antenen said. Inmates in punitive segregation spend up to 23 hours a day in single-person cells. Mr. Hughes was not on suicide watch when he killed himself, on Jan. 27, but he had been a few months before that, Mr. Antenen said. Correction officials are now looking into why Mr. Hughes had been taken off suicide watch, Mr. Antenen said. In addition to gaining special access to counselors, inmates on suicide watch are not allowed to have belts or shoelaces. Inmates on suicide watch, whether housed in a cell or in a dormitory setting, are also required to be visually observed by a Correction officer at least every 15 minutes, according to departmental regulations. Officials said they did not believe that any Correction officers had violated procedures. The department, Antenen said, is in the process of buying a few hundred 'suicide smocks' and bedsheets, each made of heavy stitched cloth and designed to be virtually impossible to be fashioned into a noose. There are other measures the department is now considering as well, Mr. Antenen said. One is a recommendation, made earlier this month, by members of the Board of Correction, an oversight body that sets minimum standards for city jails, to require officers to stagger their 15-minute observations of suicidal inmates to make them less predictable, in order to deter suicide attempts. |
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