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| Va. Jail Seeks Review After Three Hangings |
| By Washington Post |
| Published: 06/19/2003 |
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The superintendent of the regional jail in Stafford County -- where three men have hanged themselves in the past eight months -- said recently he has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to review the facility's suicide prevention practices. Virginia State Police are investigating the most recent deaths at the Rappahannock Regional Jail, including the suicide June 8 of Philip K. Kristoffersen, 27. Authorities also are investigating the May 25 suicide of William Chittum Jr., 19, and the April 25 death of Damon Michael Kissam, 23. Autopsies are still being done on all three. Jail officials said Kristoffersen and Chittum hanged themselves with bedsheets and Kissam died of alcohol withdrawal. A fourth man, Earl Rose Jr., 25, died in the jail in October. An investigation by the Stafford County sheriff concluded that Rose hanged himself, and a medical examiner found he died of asphyxiation. Rose's was the first suicide in the 35-year history of the jail, which takes prisoners from Fredericksburg and from Stafford, Spotsylvania and King George counties and is overseen by a board of officials from those communities. Jail Superintendent Larry Hamilton said recently that he was 'perplexed' by the recent deaths and that he had asked the National Institute of Corrections, an arm of the Justice Department, to perform a review after Chittum's death. Suicide is the second-most common form of death in jails nationwide, after natural causes, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Of the 919 deaths in jails in 1999, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 324 were suicides. Hamilton said the Rappahannock Regional Jail is aggressive about watching inmates who may be suicidal, but that none of the three men who hanged themselves had shown signs of depression. During the past year, he said, there were 11 suicide attempts at the jail, and 90 inmates had been placed on a suicide watch. |
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