Citation

Voulgaris A, Hartwig S, Konrad N, Opitz-Welke A. Int. J. Law Psychiatry 2019; 66: e101460.

Affiliation

Institute for Forensic Psychiatry, Charité University Berlin, Germany.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijlp.2019.101460

PMID

31706407

Abstract

The prevalence of mental disorders and comorbidity with substance abuse and personality disorders is high in prisoners. Furthermore, drug abuse in prison is a widespread problem throughout prisons around the world. In this retrospective study, we analyzed the prison deaths over six years (2012-2017). For each death, we collected data of the Berlin prison system, the prison hospital and the State Institute for Forensic and Social Medicine Berlin and the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, Charité Medical University Berlin. In total, 33 prisoners died during our study period, of which 24 committed suicide. In 25% of the suicide cases, forensic toxicology reports were positive for drugs without cases of lethal intoxication. A direct influence of drug intoxication on prisoner deaths and suicide was not common in our data. Small sample size, a missing control group, and the retrospective study design limit generalizability of the results.

Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Drug abuse; Mental disorder; Prison suicide; Strangulation; Toxicology reports