WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- The suicide rate in U.S. jails dropped sharply between 1983 and 2002 and is no longer the leading cause of inmate deaths.
The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that in 1983 the rate was 129 suicides for every 100,000 inmates. That dropped to 47 per 100,000 in 2002.
In 2002, the death rate from illness and natural causes in jails was 69 per 100,000.
The report is the first issued under the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2002.
Suicides in state prisons also fell, from 34 to 14 per 100,000.
Suicides were five times more likely in jails with fewer than 50 inmates than in those with 2,000 or more. White inmates were six times more likely to commit suicide than blacks, and three times more likely than Hispanics. Men were more likely than women to kill themselves, and those charged with violent crime were more likely suicides than non-violent offenders.
Almost half of all jail inmates who killed themselves did so in the first week of incarceration.
Homicides also fell in both jails and prisons. In 1983, the homicide rate was 54 per 100,000 in prisons, dropping to 4 percent 20 years later. In jails, the rate dropped from 5 to 3 per 100,000.
