Suicide prevention in New South Wales Correctional Centres

The New South Wales Department of Corrective Services has introduced a number of suicide prevention measures in order to deal with the problem of inmate suicides. This article describes the measures. The article also shows that the characteristics of the incarcerated population differ greatly from those in the community. Findings from the self-harm database 1991-1995 show that, nevertheless, there are some unique characteristics of the group of self-harmers and fatal self-harmers. These findings are discussed in relation to the preventive measures that are introduced in the NSW correctional centers.