Justin Welch writes about how prevalent suicides have become in prisons in Wisconsin and that includes his own attempts to end his life. 

I’m going to a memorial service this Friday for a man who hanged himself. This inmate was asking to get mental health treatment at Wisconsin Secure Program Facility (WSPF) but was denied. WSPF was built as a super max prison and, after a major lawsuit, it was determined that the prison couldn’t house seriously mentally ill people, because of the mental effects the design of the facility played on a person’s mental well-being.

After this last suicide, I wrote to Mental Health Services asking for mental health programming. I was denied, just like the man who had committed suicide.

I was given information that the prison has a long history of denying inmates treatment for mental health. I guess we will never know if that treatment offered at WRC would have helped the last man who committed suicide.

Everyone I have talked to in WSPF tell me that they have been denied to go to WRC for treatment.

I’ve been in Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI), Waupun Correctional Institution (WCI), WRC, and WSPF. Out of all of them, WRC is the only one I don’t know of any deaths. I know a number of guys who ended their lives by purposely overdosing on drugs. I know three guys who hanged themselves. I know two men who cut their veins open and bled out.

I’ve put a lot of thought into how I would commit suicide. My decision, if that time comes, is to overdose and just go to sleep. I’m not at that point yet, but that’s how I’ll do it. Prison is a sad place, and the men in here aren’t people, but numbers.

I’m not asking for anybody’s sympathy for us in here. I know how society looks at us. But taxpayers foot the bill for all this so-called mental health treatment, but per capita compared to any statistic, prison suicide numbers are far larger than anything.

Do you know 15 people who have died from suicide? Do you even know five people who have died from suicide? But taxpayers are paying for all the people with PhDs in psychology to treat inmates, for what? I’m personally saddened by our great nation’s failure to remember the Americans in facilities across this country who are dying in much larger numbers than any other statistic out there.

I wonder how hard it was to hang until dead by the bars on the cell door? Life must be pretty difficult to pull that off. Men in prison are already mentally stressed out because conditions of confinement are mentally taxing and overwhelming.

I’ve had many talks with inmates over the years about suicide. I always try to give them some form of hope so they don’t give up on life. I have personally been down this dark path of suicide attempts in prison. I’ve needed life-saving medical treatment such as blood transfusions and surgeries to cauterize my veins. So yes, I’ve gone down this path and it went on for years, but finally I found purpose in my life and learned that my stories could help others.

Coming to WSPF has truly made it hard to get my stories published, because this facility wants to impose a policy that has never been an issue before, just to hinder my ability to get my stories published. But I’m not letting this facility stop me from writing my stories, because maybe somebody will read this or another story and want to help a person.

I know it gives me purpose in this life I’m forced to reside in, for now.

This upcoming memorial has motivated me to apply myself more to helping people. I couldn’t help the man who took his life, but I truly think if I could have talked to him, just maybe given my experiences in prison, could have guided him down a different path.

Do you know anybody in prison? If so, this may hit home with you. But most people who read my stories are critics and have no empathy for the next person. I get it, because people like myself have done major wrongs.

I write my stories to help people, and that is who I am now.

So if you have no empathy for me, just remember, not all the men in here are bad people.

Justin P. Welch #579750
Wisconsin Secure Program Facility
P.O. Box 189
Phoenix, MD 21131

The post We’ve Had So Many Suicides in Prisons in Wisconsin first appeared on Prison Writers.