ABSTRACT
This chapter considers suicide to lie on a cognitive behavioural continuum from thoughts about death and a reluctance to go on living, through suicide ideation, planning, action in the form of attempts, through to a suicidal death. The suicidal individual is not considered to progress along this continuum in a linear fashion but more likely to oscillate across various stages according to his or her changing circumstances and daily experiences. According to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, each year approximately one million people die from suicide and 10 or 20 times more people attempt suicide worldwide. This represents one death every 40 seconds and one attempt every 3 seconds. Suicide in prisons, jails and other offender facilities has been a longstanding concern for those responsible for the provision of care to prisoners. Suicides rates in prison are substantially higher than in the general population, with the prison population typically associated with an up to tenfold increase in risk.
