The deprivation perspective holds that prison suicide is a product of the restrictive prison milieu. Loss of freedom, isolation, and conditions of the prison increase the likelihood of suicide in prison. The importation model suggests that the demographic, social, and psychological characteristics of inmates explain suicide. From this perspective, predictors of suicide operate the same both in prison and in the general community. Several themes have emerged from past few decades of research on prison suicide. Most evident is the marked distinction between psychological and sociological approaches. Psychological research dominates the field while sociological inquiry into prison suicide is under-developed. i.e., limited numbers of studies, which argue for the environmental causes of suicide, exist in the literature on prison suicides. Psychological studies of prison suicides, which focus almost exclusively on the characteristics of individuals, are numerous. In addition, the prediction and prevention responses to prison suicide speak to the larger study of social control and the construction of social problems. A common finding in these descriptive studies points to the mental health status of suicidal inmates, with the majority of inmates who commit suicide in prison having been diagnosed with mental illness or having had contact with mental health services while in prison. The reports indicate that number of suicides significantly increased in super-maximum and maximum security prisons (relative to minimum), under conditions of overcrowding and high levels of violence, and in prisons where a greater proportion of inmates received mental health services.
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