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Suicides at Anne Arundel County jail in hit nine-year high

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December 17, 2017 at 5:22 p.m. EST

Three inmates killed themselves in an Anne Arundel County jail this year, the highest number of suicides since 2008.

Macey Marie Machen, Sobhy Fariz Narouz Abdelmalak and Sean Paul Cassady took their own lives while being held this year at the Jennifer Road Detention Center, the county’s maximum security intake and pretrial facility.

In 2008, when the jail last experienced three suicides in one year, detention center officials brought in a consultant to review jail policies, superintendent Terry Kokolis said. But this time is different, he said.

The three suicides happened under varying circumstances. Cassady, 29, hanged himself in February a day after arriving at the Jennifer Road facility near Annapolis. The door of his cell was open, and his cellmate found him after returning from a visitation.

Abdelmalak, 59, took his own life after a month in a single cell, where he stayed for his own protection. His charges related to the sexual abuse of a minor made him a potential target for violence.

Machen, who committed suicide in November, was under heightened surveillance in the medical facility at Jennifer Road. She’d talked to multiple people, including a social worker, during the day and exhibited no signs of mental distress, Kokolis said.

Police found no foul play in the three cases, said Lt. Ryan Frashure, a county police spokesman.

“Why somebody loses hope that their only solution is that, I’m not sure a consultant can come in and solve it,” Kokolis said.

Machen arrived at the Jennifer Road facility after having seizures at the Ordnance Road Correctional Center in Glen Burnie, her family said. The Jennifer Road jail is equipped to house inmates with specific medical or behavioral needs.

She was undergoing a detox from methadone, said Denise Jones, Machen’s mother, which she’d been on for at least five years. Jails are required to detox inmates with methadone addictions, Kokolis said, excluding pregnant women, as detox could harm the fetus.

“Each and every person that walks in the door” goes through an intake process and medical screening partially aimed at identifying potential risk factors and detecting mental health concerns, said Patricia Sollock, director of mental health services at the jail.

A nurse asks specific questions to ascertain the person’s mental state and takes notes on the person’s expression, appearance, behavior and circumstance. At any point during an inmate’s incarceration, any staff member can refer them to mental health services for potentially harmful or unusual behavior.

After a referral and mental health assessment, there are different options for housing including a mental health unit, an observation area in the medical unit or a step-down unit for those rehabilitating and working toward more independence. Inmates who show signs of self-harm or suicidal tendencies are placed on “suicide precautions” in a high-visibility cell where officers check in at 15-minute intervals.

A suicidal person might be given a weighted, tear-resistant garment called an anti-suicide vest or a similarly impervious anti-suicide blanket.

Even then, with the best science and assessment available, it’s hard to predict who will take their own life, Kokolis said.

“It’s almost like using a template and the template could turn out to be inaccurate,” he said. “You take the best information available and . . . assume everyone will commit suicide.”

At the Jennifer Road facility, there have been 350 calls for suicide evaluations between January and November. There were 230 people on suicide precaution between January and November. This year there were two attempted suicides, but it’s the first year there has been a suicide since 2014. In 2014, there were 50 suicides for every 100,000 inmates in local jails, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics.

— Baltimore Sun