Citation

Frottier P, Matschnig T, Benda N, Eher R, König F, Frühwald S. Recht Psych. 2002; 20(3): 162-167.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, Psychiatrie-Verlags)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The increase of suicides and suicide rates in Austrian prisons is significant since 1975. Due to an important legislative reform of the criminal law, more single cells were available in Austrian prisons since 1975. Isolation is known to be a depriving and suicidal factor. As the average daily population has remained constant since 1990, and we have no evidence for more frequent provision of single cells, single-cell housing cannot be a sufficient explanation for the still increasing trend of suicides in the past decade. Deprivation as the only reason for increasing suicide rates would not explain the still increasing trend in the past decade. The question arises, whether vulnerability profiles of incarcerated individuals could account for increasing suicide rates. The prevalence of psychiatric disorders in prisons is high, and we have evidence that it is significantly increasing since 1991. This paper investigates, whether increasing suicide rates are due to an increasing prevalence of psychiatrically disordered inmates within the correctional system of Austria.

Language: en

Keywords

article; Austria; controlled study; criminal law; housing; human; legal aspect; mental disease; population research; prevalence; prison; Prison; prisoner; Prisoners on remand; Psychiatric disorders in custody; social isolation; suicide; Suicide; Suicide prevention