Jail suicide and the need for debriefing

Although first introduced more than 15 years ago, Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) has not been frequently utilized within the correctional community. As a structured protocol designed to prevent or mitigate traumatic stress, CISD has two main goals: (1) to lessen the impact of distressing critical incidents on the personnel exposed to them; (2) to accelerate recovery from those events before harmful stress reactions have a chance to damage the performance, careers, health, and families of personnel responding to emergencies. The need for debriefing remains acute. Whenever I conduct a jail-suicide prevention training seminar and explain the importance of the CISD process, correctional officers invariably approach me at the end of the workshop and begin to explain their experience with an inmate's suicide. Their voices are always characterized by frustration. This is one officer's story.