Inmate's apparent suicide attempt under investigation

An inmate from the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield was hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt last Thursday.
https://vtdigger.org/2015/04/27/inmate-attempts-suicide-at-southern-state-correctional-facility-officials-say/

INMATE ATTEMPTS SUICIDE AT SOUTHERN STATE CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, OFFICIALS SAY ELIZABETH HEWITT APR. 27 2015, 4:45 PM LEAVE A COMMENT The Defender General’s Office and the Vermont State Police are investigating an attempted suicide by an inmate at Southern State Correctional Facility last week, officials said Monday. Patrick Fennessey, 32, an inmate at the Vermont state prison in Springfield, attempted to hang himself Friday, Department of Corrections Commissioner Andy Pallito confirmed by email. Fennessey is receiving treatment at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, Pallito confirmed. Pallito said he could not comment on Fennessey’s condition, but did confirm as of Monday that Fennessey was alive. Fennessey is serving a sentence of between 26 months and ten years. He was convicted of burglary and unlawful trespass. There will be an investigation by the Vermont State Police, which Pallito noted is standard. The case has also been referred to the Agency of Human Services Investigations Unit, which handles internal, labor-related investigations within the agency. “Although all indications are a suicide (attempt), we can’t be sure and so these are treated as a crime scene,” Pallito stated in an email. Defender General Matt Valerio said that he learned that there had been a suicide attempt at Southern State on Friday morning and assigned an investigator to look into the incident that day. The investigation will take note of whether the suicide attempt was preventable, as well as whether there were “signs that could have, that should have been picked up on that weren’t,” Valerio said. The number of self-inflicted harm incidents across the Vermont corrections system has been rising over recent years, from 408 incidents in FY 2008 to 634 in FY 2014, according to DOC documents. The majority of cases are classified as “low lethality,” which include threats of self-harm and injuries that do not require medical care from outside the prison. There were two suicides in the state correctional system in FY 2014, and seven “high lethality” cases. There had not been a suicide in Vermont prisons for at least six years prior to that. In an email statement, Dr. Dee Burroughs-Biron, director of the DOC’s health division, said that the department does “an excellent job” preventing suicides in the prison population. “We have been well below Vermont as a whole and many other correctional jurisdictions,” Burroughs-Biron stated. Inmate's Apparent Suicide Attempt Under Investigation POSTED BY MARK DAVIS ON MON, APR 27, 2015 AT 5:22 PM An inmate from the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield was hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt Thursday, the Vermont Department of Corrections told Seven Days. click to enlarge Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, Vt. - VERMONT DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS VERMONT DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, Vt. The 32-year-old man apparently tried to hang himself, and has been hospitalized ever since at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., DOC Commissioner Andy Pallito said. The hospital did not immediately release the inmate's condition. The man was serving a two-to-10-year sentence for burglary and unlawful trespass. His maximum release date is in 2019. His minimum passed in 2011. Pallito said the incident has been referred to Vermont State Police. There are no indications of foul play, Pallito said. It has also been referred to the investigations unit of the Agency of Human Services, which can review any potential personnel problems inside the state's largest prison. The inmate was in general population and had a cellmate. He was not subject to checks given every 15 minutes for inmates believed to be suicide risks, Pallito said. The news comes several months after the family of a Winooski man who hanged himself in a state prison in 2013 sued the DOC. The lawsuit alleges that DOC staff drove Robert Mossey, 38, to suicide by failing to monitor him after prescribing medication with psychological side effects, and by letting him languish in custody weeks after he could have been released. Mossey hanged himself in a broom closet at Northwest State Correctional Facility in Newport in August 2013, three months after he began serving a sentence for retail theft.