Vitoria, (EFE).- Basque prisons have a new protocol to prevent suicides that addresses this issue from the perspective of mental health and reinforces the role of “support prisoners”, who will receive specific training and remuneration for this task.
The suicide rate in prisons is “significantly higher” than outside, with rates 7.5 times higher among remand inmates and 6 times higher among prisoners overall.
This means that since 2015 ten prisoners have taken their own lives in the Basque Country. Two of these deaths have occurred this year in the Basque prisons of Álava and Gipuzkoa.
With the aim of reducing these figures, the Basque Government has drawn up a protocol that updates the guidelines for Penitentiary Institutions.
Remuneration to support prisoners
The Basque Government’s adviser on prison matters, Jaime Tapia, explained to EFE that the new protocol -prepared in collaboration with Osakidetza- involves “everyone in prison”, from family members, officials and volunteers to the inmates themselves.
In fact, the role of the so-called “support prisoners” is reinforced, who are not people dedicated “exclusively to preventing” suicidal ideas, but who become someone who “helps, accompanies, alleviates and listens”. Their task “sometimes is not visible but it is very important,” adds Tapia.
As proof of the relevance given to this figure, from now on they will be given a “small remuneration” as a “reward” and, in addition, it will be necessary to receive specific training to be able to be a “support prisoner”. The idea is that 2-3% of the prison population is trained as such.
Their functions vary depending on the level of risk of the people they care for and range from sharing a cell with them and accompanying them in non-community activities to staying by their side 24 hours a day.
attention to signs
The protocol lists different signs to detect prisoners with suicidal ideas, such as giving away their belongings and showing changes in behavior and routines; and warning of factors that increase this risk such as not having family support, suffering from depression or alcohol use disorders, facing a very long sentence and going to prison for the first time.
Gender is also a matter to take into account, since there are more attempts among women but mortality is three times higher in men, who tend to use more lethal methods. Members of the LGTBI collective also have a higher suicide rate in Basque prisons.
Image of the Martutene prison. EFE/Javier Etxezarreta
In the event that suicide cannot be avoided in the end, the protocol stresses the need to care for the people affected (relatives, colleagues and officials) and orders an analysis of each case with the intention of detecting possible failures to improve the system, as explained Wall.
The approach of the protocol, sums up the adviser to the Basque Government, is “positive” in the sense that people with suicidal ideas can be cared for inside the prison just as it is done outside.
Now “there is more awareness” and the inmates are given the idea that if they need help they just have to ask for it as they would if they had a physical illness instead of a mental one. EFE