[Women Prisoner News] Op-Ed by Rojas on Suicide Behind Bars

[News about women prisoners]

*Stopping the hidden problem of suicide behind bars *
https://www.ocregister.com/2019/09/06/stopping-the-hidden-problem-of-suicide-behind-bars/

By Stacy Rojas <https://www.ocregister.com/author/stacy-rojas/> |
PUBLISHED: September 6, 2019 at 12:00 pm | UPDATED: September 6, 2019 at
12:00 pm

There has been an onslaught of media attention to the suicide of Jeffery
Epstein. Millions of people are wondering what sort of neglect or
corruption made it possible for him to take his own life when guards were
supposed to be checking his cell every 30 minutes.

But suicide is pervasive in jails and prisons across the United States. The
difference is that little attention is paid when these deaths are happening
to people of color and the poor, to women and LGBT people, to people who
have been targeted and criminalized by the state for much of their lives.
When it comes to suicides inside prison, abuse and neglect is often to
blame for what are preventable deaths. Unlike the death of a billionaire
playboy, these deaths usually remain invisible to the public.

As recently as two weeks ago, two incarcerated women of color attempted
suicide at the Central California Women’s Facility. Concern over mass
suicides and attempts at CCWF and the California Institution for Women  led
to a suicide audit by the California state auditor in 2017. The audit
highlights the state’s failure to prevent suicides in California women’s
prisons in particular. Recently, Erika Rocha’s family settled a wrongful
death lawsuit against the corrections department for failing to prevent her
death at the California Institution for Women.

During my time in the Central California Women’s Facility, where I spent 15
years, I personally witnessed four people die from suicides that could have
been prevented if the prison had listened when my friends and I asked for
help. We often ended up having to rescue our friends from hanging
themselves, because it took the officers so long to step in. And sometimes,
when our friends died, the prison officers or administrators didn’t even
notify us. We’d have to look at the Daily Movement Schedule the next day
and scan the page to see if the word “deceased” was marked next to our
friends’ names and identification number.

In prison, I never saw people who were suicidal get help they needed or
begged for. My best friend died in the supposed care of the California
Department of Corrections. After I called medical emergency to try and save
them, I was beaten by the guards. I was punished for trying to perform CPR
on my best friend.
After my best friend took her life, I too was suicidal. I felt like I had a
death wish. I was placed on suicide watch, where someone sat outside my
cell for 24 hours of the day watching me. They don’t help you. They watch
you. You don’t get a blanket, and you have to wear paper clothes. Sometimes
they won’t even let you see a therapist. I had officers tell me, “Go kill
yourself,” as if they wanted me to. They’re not just neglectful; they’re
cruel.

In prison, people with serious histories of trauma and crisis are being
watched by people who have no regard for the lives of those they are
charged with protecting — people who see us not as human beings, but as
nuisances in cages. It is the opposite of care. Prison compounds histories
of trauma and abuse, especially for those struggling with suicidality, and
treatment and protection are critically important.

We need people from outside the prison coming in to offer us support. There
should be training for those inside, to teach us how to care for one
another, so that we can practice suicide prevention and do peer counseling
with each other. At the end of the day, we know that we’re the only ones
watching out for each other. We have to take it into our own hands to keep
each other from dying, because we know from experience that guards and the
prison administration won’t do it.

*Stacy Rojas is an organizer with the California Coalition for Women
Prisoners and the Young Women’s Freedom Center. Rojas was incarcerated for
15 years at the Central California Women’s Facility.*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://womenprisoners.org/pipermail/news_womenprisoners.org/attachments/20190908/874281d7/attachment.html>