Seattle Facility Records Highest U.S. Level of Jail Suicides
In Seattle’s King County Correctional Facility, six people have passed away in the last 12 months before the most recent suicide of Allen McNutt in August 2022, four of them also by suicide.
Landwebs
The majority of deaths at many jails across the country are caused by suicides, but the extreme number of suicides at one of King County’s adult jails in downtown Seattle is alarming, according to experts. The most recent data available shows that since August 2021, the suicide rate at the Seattle Division of the King County Correctional Facility has greatly exceeded pre-COVID-19 national averages, the Seattle Times reports.
The average annual suicide rate in local jails across the nation from 2000 to 2019 was 49 per 100,000 inmates. In the Seattle jail, six people have passed away in the last 12 months before the most recent suicide of Allen McNutt in August 2022, four of them also by suicide. The county’s rate together is more than four times the pre-pandemic average nationwide counting just two of those suicides. It would be eight times the average if all four deaths were taken into account.
