The number of people who died by suicide in local jails ticked up in 2013, even as the overall jail population declined, according to a new report.
Between 2012 and 2013, the number of suicides went from 300 to 327, a 9 percent increase, according to a report from the Justice Department released this month. That jump comes even as the overall jail population declined by 4 percent, the report said.
Total deaths were also up slightly between 2012 and 2013, from 958 to 967. Suicide, the report noted, has been the leading cause of death in jails every year since 2000. In 2013, 34 percent of inmates' deaths were by their own hands.
That's in stark contrast to the cause of death in state prisons, where, between 2000 and 2013, nine in 10 deaths were the result of illnesses like heart disease and cancer.
[For more of this story, written by Simon McCormack, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...1ed1e4b0f7f0bebb0d59]
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