The primary goal of any penitentiary system is not to make criminals pay for their crimes, but to make them realize their wrongful behavior and correct it in order to become law-abiding persons after they serve their time in prison. However, the process of criminals’ reformation along with the prison environment, can cause severe stress and depression, which are the potential reasons for a suicide.
According to the latest report issued by the U.S. Department of Justice, suicides remain one of the most frequent causes of death in local jails and state prisons. In 2011, the amount of suicides in local jails and state prisons was 310 and 185 respectively, or 35 and 5.5 percent of the total number of deaths. Suicides disrupt normal operation of the whole penitentiary system causing internal investigations and attracting mass media’s attention. Recent suicides of two notorious murderers, Philip Markoff in 2011 and Arial Castro in 2013, attracted public attention to the problem of suicide prevention in correctional facilities. Therefore, decisive actions were taken in order to prevent such incidents. For example, suicide prevention programs are developed in order to train correctional staff to identify mental condition of a prisoner and evaluate the risk of committing suicide. The first weeks of incarceration are the most stressful, because most prisoners are overwhelmed with guilt and shame as well as fear of other prisoners and their future in general. Change of the environment and lack of social support may lead to suicidal impulses, especially when a prisoner is put into a single cell. However, staff of the correctional facilities should be trained to distinguish potential self-murderers from prisoners who threaten to commit suicide in order to manipulate the staff and other inmates.
Despite the fact that the number of suicides in prisons remains relatively the same over the last twelve years, various measures should be taken in order to address every aspect of this complex problem. Some of the key aspects these measures should include are correctional staff training and prisoners’ behavior monitoring.

About the Author: Olivia Green is a writer and a blogger of the writing company. She enjoys reading composing her ideas in her blog, where she shares her opinion concerning certain phenomena. You may find more useful Olivia's articles at the https://primeessays.com