INED, the French demographics institute, came out with an intriguing report on suicide among the incarcerated. These points struck me:

  • The suicide rate among incarcerated men in France is six times higher than the rate among the general male population;
  • The French rate has increased over 50 years, from 4 in 10,000 in 1960 to 19 in 10,000 in 2008;
  • French prisoners exhibit the highest suicide rate among prisoners in the 15 members of European Union for the period 2002-2006;
  • Prison overcrowding does not explain the French suicide rate among the incarcerated;
  • In France, suicide is most likely to occur at the beginning of detention. This aggravates the suicide rate among those who are detained before trial or judgment. Among those tried and sentenced, suicide correlates with gravity of the offense committed, with convicted murderers and rapists being most likely to commit suicide.

Granted that there are definition and measurement problems, but there’s important social science still to be done on this subject, in Europe and beyond.