By Gavin Off
The Charlotte Observer
RALEIGH, N.C. — The number of people dying by suicide inside North Carolina state prisons is raising alarms.
Three men died in January, a loss of life that ties the record for suicides inside state prisons in a single month.
That follows 13 people incarcerated by the state dying by suicide in 2024, also tying a state record
“It’s a terrible red flag,” said Susan Pollitt, an attorney for Disability Rights North Carolina, a legal advocacy nonprofit. “It’s an alert. Something is not going right, and people are paying for it with their lives.”
Pollitt and other inmate advocates point to the state’s use of solitary confinement and a lack of correctional officers as possible causes for the uptick in suicide deaths.
Prison officials acknowledge the increase and say they are working with organizations such as the National Institute of Corrections and UNC Charlotte to try to reduce the death toll, said Lewis Peiper, chief of behavioral health for the Department of Adult Corrections.
About 6% of North Carolina’s 31,400 prison inmates are in solitary confinement, said DAC spokesperson Keith Acree. Yet about half of all suicides take place in those cells, Peiper said. But identifying causes is not simple, he said.
“You can’t look at it and say, ‘This is the cause,’” Peiper said. “It’s an individual person dealing with their individual stressors.”
Incarcerated individuals contend with many issues, Peiper said.
“Some have more traditional depression, hopelessness,” Peiper said. “Then you have others who have well-seasoned criminal activity, high-ranking gang members who decide it’s in their best interest to no longer live anymore.”
Four days, three deaths
The public knows little about last month’s three suicides. Reports released by the Department of Corrections provide only bare details, and medical examiners’ investigations haven’t been finalized.
This is what has been made public:
On Jan. 16, just after 3:30 a.m., officers found Ivan Jahir Blanco dead in a cell at Albemarle Correctional Institution in Stanly County. Blanco, 32, was convicted of drug trafficking in April 2023. He was scheduled to be released in 2030.
That night, at Greene Correctional Institution in Maury, officers found Samuel Shore dead in his cell. Shore, 28, was convicted of driving while intoxicated in 2021. He was scheduled to be released in April.
And three days later, on Jan. 19 , David Whittington, a Piedmont Correctional Institution inmate, died of self-inflicted injuries. Officers found Whittington, 25, unresponsive in his cell the week prior.
He was serving time for assaulting a law enforcement officer and revocation of his post-release supervision. Whittington was scheduled to be released in September.
All three of the men were in what N.C. DAC officials call special or restrictive housing, where inmates are confined to a cell the size of a parking space for up to 23 hours a day.
Shore had been in isolation for about a year prior to his death. The others had not been in isolation for long, according to records obtained by Disability Rights.
Solitary confinement can cause or worsen mental illnesses, studies show. A 2020 review of research published in Lancet Psychiatry concluded that solitary confinement is one of the strongest risk links to self-harm among inmates.
“A lot of times, people are put into solitary confinement, single cell, and they get ignored,” said Kayla Dillard, executive director of NC CURE, a criminal justice reform group.
A cry for help?
More information has been made public about those who died in 2024, including Erik Ramsey.
Ramsey grew up in Iredell County playing video games and rooting for the Carolina Panthers and Pittsburgh Steelers, said his stepmother, Regina Quick .
After high school, Ramsey started to struggle with his mental health. Voices from the television would talk to him, he told his parents, Quick said.
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder around 2019, Quick said. She said she believes that deteriorating mental health led him to rob four convenience stores — two in Iredell County and two in Mecklenburg County — in a single night
He was sent to prison in 2023 for armed robbery.
In May of last year, Ramsey was locked in solitary confinement in Harnett Correctional Institution, south of Raleigh. The 29-year-old had threatened to kill himself multiple times during his time in prison and had attempted to hurt himself by eating batteries and taking pills the month before, according to a state medical examiner’s report.
On May 4, Ramsey refused to take his medication. Around 10 p.m., he told a correctional officer that he “needed to talk to someone,” the report states.
The officer told Ramsey he was busy checking on other inmates and would talk later. Around 11 p.m., an officer found Ramsey in a squatting position, dead. A bed sheet was wrapped around his neck and tied to the bars of his cell door.
Prison, particularly time in solitary confinement, worsened his symptoms, Quick said. Ramsey couldn’t get the attention that he needed, she’s convinced.
“I believe he was trying to talk to someone about his mental health,” Quick said. “Something was seriously bothering him.”
Stays in isolation can degrade anyone’s mental health, said Luke Woollard, attorney for Disability Rights North Carolina.
“Certainly, it can exacerbate pre-existing issues,” he said. “And it can have people manifest mental health issues they might not have before.”
Leslie Cooley Dismukes, who took over as DAC Secretary last month, told NC Health News in January that the state is working toward following the Nelson Mandela Rules., which Acree confirmed. The Mandela rules, named after the late South African president and anti-apartheid activist, say solitary confinement should be used only as a last resort and limited to 15 days at a time.
Several states have cut back or eliminated hours that incarcerated people spend in solitary confinement in recent years, including Connecticut, New York, North Dakota and Colorado , said Pollitt, with Disability Rights.
“It’s known, it’s obvious, it’s scientifically proven to be dangerous to people,” she said.
Struggling to staff prisons
The record-tying number of suicides inside state prisons have occurred while North Carolina officials have struggled to staff them.
As of December, the state had 3,000 correctional officer jobs unfilled, 37% of those positions.
That month, Harnett Correctional, where Ramsey died, needed 114 officers and had a 61% vacancy rate, according to DAC records.
Just two of the more than 50 prisons in North Carolina had a higher rate of unfilled correction officer positions, state data show.
“When places are short staffed, everything is tougher to do, that includes implementing any program or plan, including a suicide prevention plan,” Woollard said.
To increase staff, the department has worked to streamline the hiring and certification process, Dismukes told NC Health News last month.
To attract workers, she said she wanted her agency to launch a media campaign that highlights the good work correctional officers do and the benefits of working in prison, she said. And she talked about teaming up with other state agencies to bring affordable housing to the rural communities where prisons are located.
Looking for solutions
In 2023, Department of Adult Corrections officials joined UNC Charlotte researchers to begin developing a new suicide prevention training program for correctional mental health staff, such as psychologists, clinical social workers and clinical mental health councilors, said Peiper, the behavior health specialist. The $410,000 project is expected to wrap up before October.
This year, a representative for the National Institute of Corrections Crisis Intervention Teams will lead department officials in a training session aimed at better protecting inmates with serious mental illnesses, Peiper said.
A goal of the partnerships, he said, was to reduce the number of suicides.
“They’re happening nationally,” Peiper said. “They’re happening within the community. Federal prisons have seen them. State prisons have seen them. We’re working to be part of the answer to the question of what works in corrections.”
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