Ombuds investigation shows suicide warning signs missed at Washington State prisons Sydney Kurle | May 10, 2021
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This report is the continuation of a 2019 investigation, which showed the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) had a 250% increase in suicides from 2018 to 2019. In 2019, five of the 37 deaths were suicide, whereas suicide was involved in only two of the 37 deaths in 2018.
Although the number of suicide deaths in 2020 returned to the DOC’s average baseline of two suicide deaths per year, the OCO “proceeded with an investigation into both cases to determine whether there were findings similar to those put forth in the prior report which potentially contributed to these two deaths.”
Now that a top oversight official for New Jersey’s prisons has announced his resignation – a day after a hearing where legislators were clearly unhappy with his work – inmates could see their conditions improve, lawmakers said.
Ombudsman Dan DiBenedetti plans to resign this summer from the position he has held since 2009. He would leave office a year after getting greater power to serve as a prison watchdog but, critics have said, not using that power.
New Jersey’s prisons have come under increased scrutiny, including its only prison for women where federal authorities have detailed assaults and sexual abuse. A violent assault on female inmates earlier this year is now the subject of criminal investigations.