Prison suicide in Finland, 1969–1992

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0379-0738(97)00119-9Get rights and content

Abstract

Background. All prisoners' suicides in Finland during 1969–1992 (n = 184) were studied. Method. The data were collected from official documents. Results. Of all prisoners' deaths, 47% were suicides. The rate of suicide among male prisoners was three-fold compared to the normal adult Finnish male population. More than half of those committing suicide had a psychiatric disturbance and one half of them had visited the prison health services because of a psychiatric problem not more than one week before the suicide. Almost one third of the suicides were committed in isolation rooms. Contrary to the findings of many previous studies, there was no concentration of suicides at weekends, on religious holidays, in different seasons nor at the beginning of the confinement. Conclusions. The most important finding of this study was the common use of health care facilities in the prison just before the suicide. It is important to try to develop the means to recognize suicidal ideation among all prisoners seeking psychiatric care. The surveillance of prisoners in isolation cells needs to tighten up and should probably be continuous.

References (16)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (81)

  • Imprisonment, community sanctions and mortality by cause of death among patients with substance use disorder – a 28-year follow-up using Finnish register data

    2022, Drug and Alcohol Dependence
    Citation Excerpt :

    Previous descriptive results on these data did not report a high number of deaths following incarceration (Pitkänen et al., 2016). We did not have a strong hypothesis on in-prison mortality; Fazel and Benning (2006) reported a threefold mortality rate when external causes such as suicides were included, and a similar proportion of suicides from all deaths as found by Joukamaa in Finnish data (Joukamaa, 1997). Joukamaa reported a threefold suicide mortality rate compared to general population (Joukamaa, 1997), implying increased all-cause prison mortality rate.

  • The role of stressful life events preceding death by suicide: Evidence from two samples of suicide decedents

    2017, Psychiatry Research
    Citation Excerpt :

    The SRRS and its weighting is a robust and valid tool for assessing the severity of stress-related outcomes (Scully et al., 2000). For the current study, a composite measure was created using the LTE items, SRRS stressor ratings, and additional items from each individual's case history that were deemed stressful based on empirical research (i.e., separation from family, hospitalizations, family member problems, miscarriage, work conflict, threat to well-being, and solitary confinement; Heikkinen et al., 1994; Gissler et al., 1996; Joukamaa, 1997; Way et al., 2005; Foster, 2011). The composite coding scheme utilized in the present study correlated highly with the original coding scheme for lifetime SLEs (r = 0.71).

View all citing articles on Scopus

Fax: +358 8 333617.

View full text