Data-Driven and State-Tailored Strategies to Promote Suicide Prevention in Corrections Facilities

Suicide remains a significant public health issue in corrections settings in the United States, requiring systems-focused strategies for prevention and policy. We aggregated across 37 suicide rates, structural, social, and corrections-related variables from publicly available data sources. We used Latent Profile Analysis to identify clusters by profiles of correction systems across 50 states. We analyzed descriptive statistics of state characteristics by cluster to better understand their profiles. Lastly, we conducted ANOVAs to examine differences in suicide rates between clusters. We identified four clusters of states based on their profiles of corrections variables: number of facilities, populations in prisons, jails, and private prisons, prison overcrowding, prisoner-to-staff ratios, and disparities by race/ethnicity and gender. Thirteen states showed the highest racial and gender disparities in prison populations. Twenty-eight states showed average scores across all variables. Four states showed the highest proportion of people incarcerated in privately owned facilities. Five states showed the highest incarceration rates in both prisons and jails. Significant differences in suicide rates were observed across clusters, especially within jails. Findings from this study enhance our understanding of how structural and social factors may be associated with suicide in corrections settings. The discussion includes specific, tailored prevention strategies and policy solutions aimed at systems-level intervention.