Half of the deaths recorded between 2000 and 2010 in French prisons were suicides, according to a study by Public Health France.
“Detainees constitute a particularly vulnerable population: they are in poorer health than the general population, from the moment they enter detention”. It is with these words that the agency Public Health France introduced the study it conducted in prison in collaboration with the prison administration in France.
“The degraded state of health of detained persons constitutes a public health issue in its own right”, continues the agency, which underlines that the prison population appears, in a large proportion, “as a socially disadvantaged population, which combines the factors risk linked to precariousness. She is also exposed to risks linked to imprisonment and deprivation of liberty likely to be aggravated by the conditions of detention ”.
Women: 20 times more suicides
Hence specific studies on the state of health of this population and the health risks to which it is exposed. The study (1) thus shows that, over 10 years, half of the 2,541 deaths among prisoners were suicides.
This rate is significantly higher than in the French population as a whole (7 times more for men and 20 times for women). On the other hand, mortality by “natural causes”, with the exception of AIDS, was lower among those imprisoned than in the French population as a whole.
This original study resulting from the crossing of death certificates and information transmitted by the prison administration, constitutes “a step towards a system of epidemiological surveillance of suicides in detention”, specifies the agency.
Associated pathologies
In fact, the data on deaths in custody transmitted by the prison administration were matched with those from the death certificates of the CépiDc-Inserm national mortality base in order to study the pathologies associated with suicides and other deaths occurring in prison. . An unprecedented method, while the declarations of suicides seem to be underestimated in the death certificates.
In more than half of the death certificates of people who died by suicide in prison, no somatic or psychiatric pathology was mentioned, psychiatric pathologies, mentioned in only 15.5% of cases, were probably underreported.
The implementation of epidemiological surveillance of suicides in detention would require a return to the medical files or a questioning of the health units in charge of the deceased detainee, as well as an improvement in the transmission of information by forensic institutes to the CépiDc-Inserm.
“Improving the feedback of medical information, and in particular those relating to possible pathologies (psychiatric or somatic) associated with suicide, would make it possible to analyze the environmental factors linked to detention and the factors linked to the morbidity of imprisoned persons” , concludes the agency.
(1) Suicides and other deaths in prison in France between 2000 and 2010. Contribution of death certificates to the knowledge and monitoring of mortality.
Leptospirosis: reinforced measures
Recently, the Controller General of Places of Deprivation of Liberty issued an apocalyptic report on the state of Fresnes prison, where the presence of rats (dead and alive) raises fears of an epidemic risk. Rats are indeed vectors of leptospirosis, a potentially fatal disease. Two inmates have been infected this year.
Following this report, Public health France ordered in February 2016 a study entitled “Investigation of grouped cases of leptospirosis among inmates of a penitentiary center in Île-de-France”, which it publishes this Tuesday.
“At the end of this investigation (…), no other case was brought to light and preventive actions were put in place, for the benefit of both detained persons and prison staff: strengthening of measures to fight against colonization of rats (reservoirs of the bacteria responsible for this disease), means of individual protection and vaccination catch-up for people in a high-risk activity ”.
.
