Author: Lt Col Dr Jarosław Rychlik, Professor, University of Justice
Introduction
Within the adopted plan, the following aspects of suicide risk are distinguished:
- The individual dimension – involving the search for internal, personal determinants of
suicide (e.g., traits, tendencies, beliefs and attitudes, mental disorders and illnesses, etc.); - The individual dimension – understood from the perspective of the environmental
resources available to the individual. This aspect considers environmental resources whose
burden or deterioration results in increased suicide risk. In this area, it is proposed that we
distinguish resources:
• concerning the environment outside the penitentiary unit (e.g., having family
support, the ability to return to previous work, having housing),
• involving the environment in the penitentiary unit (e.g., sociometric position in the
correctional group, nature of the crime, and attitude towards prison staff); - The structural dimension – concerning specific organisational and infrastructure aspects
of the penitentiary unit that may be considered determining factors with regard to the
effectiveness of counteracting suicide risk (detention/prison facilities, age of the penitentiary
facility, social and living infrastructure, location in terms of transport connections, capacity); - The legal and functional dimension – related to the adequacy of anti-suicide procedures with
respect to the capacity of penitentiary units and their staff (e.g., conflict between the
implementation of preventative measures and the numerous tasks resulting from other
regulations and orders, insufficient technical resources, insufficient staff for the implementation
of anti-suicide measures); - The staff psychosocial dimension – concerning levels of professional stress, burnout, social
integration among Prison Service officers and staff, opportunities for constructive conflict
resolution between officers.