Ryan Fadler was 39 years old when he died on March 22.
The Fredericktown man, who was being held in the Perry County Jail in Perryville, was four days into a 150-day sentence on forgery and drug charges when he hanged himself in a holding cell.
Jailers responded quickly, getting Fadler loose and administering CPR with the aid of an automated external defibrillator while waiting for an ambulance
He was breathing and had a pulse when he arrived at Perry County Memorial Hospital, just minutes away from the jail.
He was transported by helicopter to St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, where he later died.
Fadler’s death in custody was the first in the 26 years Gary Schaaf has served as Perry County Sheriff.
“That’s the only one,” Schaaf said.
It hasn’t been the only attempt, however. Since Fadler’s death, there have been nearly 10 other instances in which an inmate at the Perry County Jail has attempted suicide or threatened to attempt suicide, with four coming in the past four months.
“Whether they were going to actually do it or not, I don’t know,” Schaaf said. “Nobody really knows.”
While Fadler’s reasons for attempting suicide may never be known, the reasons behind attempts by other inmates are sometimes easier to determine. According to Schaaf, some of them may have been legitimate cries for help, but at least one of them was an attempt to get a vacation of sorts.
<blockquote><hr /><h3 style="text-align: center;">“The last time, when he’s about to get out, he says, ‘Oh, yeah, I faked it every time,’ ”</h3><h5 style="text-align: center;">— Perry County Jail administrator Capt. Wayne Craft, on a prisoner who threatened suicide at least three times while in custody.</h5><hr /><h5> </h5></blockquote>
“One of them, we know why he was doing it,” Schaaf said. “He never actually went through with anything. It’s brinksmanship. He wanted to be out of jail. He didn’t like it. He wanted to go somewhere where life was easier on him.”
As he approached his release date, the inmate in question — who is on record with three separate attempted suicides or threats to attempt suicide — told jailers he never intended to harm himself.
“The last time, when he’s about to get out, he says, ‘Oh, yeah, I faked it every time,’” said Capt. Wayne Craft, the jail administrator. “It’s hard to tell if they’re faking or not, so we treat every incident the same.”
<h3><strong>Following procedure</strong></h3>
The procedure for dealing with a potentially suicidal prisoner is fairly complicated, Craft said.
“If they try to commit suicide, we call an ambulance to take them up to the hospital and we have to sit with them for anywhere from eight to 24 hours until they find an open bed in a mental health facility,” Craft said.
During that time, the inmate is examined — and treated, if necessary — by medical staff and must be determined to be physically “fit for confinement” in a mental health facility. Then the search for an open bed begins. Once that bed is found, then a judge has to sign a confinement order, further extending the wait.
<blockquote><hr /><h3 style="text-align: center;">“When these guys are faking it, they’re taking up valuable resources from our community and other communities for the people that really have mental problems that need that bed.”</h3><h5 style="text-align: center;">— Craft, on inmates who stage suicide attempts</h5><hr /><h5 style="text-align: center;"> </h5></blockquote>
The Perry County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for transporting the inmate to the mental health facility, which could be anywhere in the state from Poplar Bluff to as far away as Kansas City. Transport staff primarily comes from the already overtaxed jail staff. Once the 96-hour evaluation is complete, jail staff must return to collect the inmate and return him to the jail.
“When they go that far, we have to have two people to transport them,” Craft said. “When these guys are faking it, they’re taking up valuable resources from our community and other communities for the people that really have mental problems that need that bed.”
Meanwhile, back at the jail, the remaining inmates are often faced with the consequences of these attempts. Schaaf said that’s the way it has to be.
“We have to be, as much as we can, vigilant and keep an eye on everybody,” Schaaf said. “If we get some sort of indication that somebody is suicidal, we try to make arrangements to get them up here where they can be watched, but we’ve only got so much room.
“We try to remove anything they could use to harm themselves with. If it’s bad enough, we take away all their bedding and take their clothes, their uniforms, and give them what’s called a ‘suicide suit,’ which is just basically a heavy gown that you can’t rip apart and make into a noose.”
According to Craft, inmates are no longer allowed sheets in their cells.
<h3>What’s the motive?</h3>
Why do inmates fake suicide attempts? In Schaaf’s opinion, it’s fairly simple.
“If you’re in a mental hospital, at least you’re not in a jail cell.”
Craft agreed, adding that once one person does it, there is often a rash of copycats.
“They see what happened,” Craft said. “This person, they get taken to a psychiatric hospital where they get all the phone calls they want, they get three hot meals, they have a soft bed, they let them smoke, and they can have visitors. After the doctor discharges them, they come back and they tell all their buddies, ‘Yeah, all you’ve got to do is put a sheet around your neck and they take you to the hospital. You get sent away for 96 hours and you can do all this stuff.’ ”
<blockquote><hr /><h3 style="text-align: center;">“He just wanted to get out of jail, I think, and go on a trip. You have to wonder if they’re doing that or not."</h3><h5 style="text-align: center;">— Perry County Sheriff Gary Schaaf, on an inmate who made what Schaaf suspects was a staged suicide attempt.</h5><hr /><h5> </h5></blockquote>
Of the most recent attempts, according to Schaaf’s records, three involved an inmate attempting or appearing to attempt to hang himself with a sheet. Another was an inmate who only threatened to make an attempt, and one involved an inmate who tried to make a rope out of plastic wrap saved from the meals inmates are served.
Privacy concerns prevented the sheriff’s office from identifying any of the inmates involved.
“One of them with the sheet, you can see on the video camera that he waited for the jailer to come back there so he could make it look like he was trying to hang himself,” Schaaf said. “He just wanted to get out of jail, I think, and go on a trip. You have to wonder if they’re doing that or not. I don’t know.”
According to Dr. Sharon Braun, director of public relations for Community Counseling Center in Cape Girardeau, legitimate attempts could be motivated by any number of factors.
“I think it’s just the times,” said Braun, who holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and has been a licensed professional counselor and national board-certified counselor for the past 10 years at Community Counseling. “People are just desperate and, as far as being housed in jail, I would very much suspect they might be depressed. I would suspect that probably some of them were on drugs and when they’re coming off the drugs, I know that it’s very painful, that people just really do want to die. So that could be a piece of it.”
As for the less legitimate attempts, Braun said there could still be an underlying cause.
“You can look at that different ways,” Braun said. “I mean, it could be just a cry for help and they don’t know what else to do.”
<h2>Familiar faces</h2>
Community Counseling maintains a branch office in Perryville and provides counseling services for inmates at the jail and also helps train officers in crisis intervention.
“There are some good officers up there,” Braun said. “We work very closely with them and we actually train officers.”
According to Craft, jail staff are trained to be proactive when dealing with inmates who may have emotional problems.
“We’re doing our best to make sure they’re safe. “That depends not only on us, but also on their support system with their family and everything.”
“If it’s known, then we’ll contact Community Counseling and they’ll send a counselor over here,” Craft said. “We have five inmates now that we take to Community Counseling, usually about once a month.”
<blockquote><hr /><h3 style="text-align: center;">“We’re doing our best to make sure they’re safe."</h3><h4 style="text-align: center;">— Schaaf, on inmates at the Perry County Jail</h4><hr /><h4> </h4></blockquote>
That’s all part of the jail staff’s responsibility for the inmates, Schaaf said.
“We’re doing our best to make sure they’re safe,” Schaaf said. “That depends not only on us, but also on their support system with their family and everything.”
According to sheriff’s department records, deputies in Perry County have responded to 87 calls this year involving a subject in an emotional crisis, many of which involved taking the subject to speak with a counselor from Community Counseling.
“We had 87 instances where we had to transport someone for mental evaluation,” Schaaf said, “instances where people were attempting [suicide] or somebody thought they were going to attempt something. Somebody may call in about their child to say, ‘Well, you know, he’s had some issues lately and I think he might be suicidal.’ They come out and talk to him with the counselors and everything and decide, ‘Yeah, he probably has to go see somebody.’”
Community Counseling has also been heavily involved in working with local law enforcement as part of the Southeast Missouri Crisis Intervention Team, which trains officers in ways to deescalate many situations, especially when dealing with those suffering from emotional distress or mental issues.
Perry County Sheriff’s Office Det. Jason Klaus serves as the chairman of SEMO CIT, and also serves as the statewide CIT coordinator.
“What we’ve focused on is training officers on mental health awareness and recognition to make sure that when they arrive on scene, that they can identify if this person is in a mental health crisis and, if so, safely try to get that individual hooked up with community resources, help and assistance,” Klaus told the Republic-Monitor earlier this year. “They may require hospitalization, they may just require a referral, but ultimately, our goal is to try to keep that individual out of jail and out of the criminal justice system.”
According to CEO John Hudak, Community Counseling shares that goal.
“We are so pleased to be a part of Southeast Missouri CIT and to support the vital partnership between mental health providers and law enforcement,” Hudak said in a statement. “It is always exciting to recognize the vital work that our law enforcement in providing crucial resources, mental health advocacy and support to consumers in our communities. It is an honor and a privilege to share our appreciation to the law enforcement individuals who have shown such dedication to these efforts.”
<h2>Keeping inmates safe</h2>
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2016 report on “Mortality in Local Jails,” suicide was the leading cause of death in local jails in 2014, the latest year from which statistics have been compiled.
The number of deaths by suicide increased 13 percent between 2013 and 2014, from 328 to 372. The second leading cause of death in local jails, heart disease, decreased from 260 deaths in 2013 to 239 in 2014.
The suicide rate increased 8 percent between 2013 and 2014 to 50 suicides per 100,000 local jail inmates.
Numbers like that, Schaaf said, are why his officers and jailers take every attempt seriously.
“It’s our job to keep [inmates] safe and secure through the court process until they get their day in court,” Schaaf said. “It’s our job to keep them fed, housed, secure, and in good health. For the most part we do that.”
According to Craft, the Perry County Jail normally houses 39-40 inmates in its 40-bed facility, but that population occasionally spikes to as many as 50 or more, housed in 20 6x12-foot cells.
<blockquote><hr /><h3 style="text-align: center;">“It’s our job to keep them fed, housed, secure, and in good health. For the most part we do that.”</h3><h4 style="text-align: center;">— Schaaf, on the his department's responsibility regarding inmates at the jail</h4><hr /><h4> </h4></blockquote>
The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported this year in its “Annual Survey of Jails,” a nationally representative survey of county or city jail jurisdictions and regional jails in the country, that county and city jails nationwide held 740,700 inmates at midyear 2016, down from a peak of 785,500 inmates at midyear 2008.
The total rated capacity of county and city jails reached 915,400 beds at year-end 2016, with 80 percent occupied, down from 95 percent in 2007. Seventeen percent of jails were operating at or above 100 percent of their above 100 percent of their rated capacity, and on average, the expected length of stay in jail was 25 days.
At the Perry County Jail, the average stay on a felony offense is approximately four months, Craft said. That covers the time from initial arrest through initial arraignment, associate court, and circuit court if necessary.
“After that, they’ll either be on probation or headed to prison,” Craft said. “If they take it to a jury trial, they’re here longer.”
<h2>Who’s keeping watch?</h2>
Inmates at the Perry County Jail are supervised by a staff of by eight jailers, a mix of commissioned deputies and non-commissioned personnel.According to Schaaf, that number leaves Craft continually short-handed by at least two jailers, a factor that can be attributed variously to the stress of the job or to the pay scale.
Non-commissioned jailers start at less than $11 an hour. Salaries of commissioned jailers, who receive similar starting pay, are augmented by funds from a statewide agency that bring them up to a more competitive level, although still below the rate offered at many other departments.
Nationwide, local jails employed 226,300 full-time staff at year-end 2016, an inmate-to-correctional officer ratio of 4-to-1. The Perry County Jail operates at a ratio that sometimes tops 5-to-1 depending on the number of inmates.
“I’ve been down as much as two [jailers] for a good part of this year,” Schaaf said. “You finally get one that’s acceptable and you put them on and started training with them and then another one leaves. So now you’ve got somebody that was trained and get some experience and they’ve left and now you’ve got to find someone else.”
Commissioned officers — the jail division has four, half the staff — are put through a 40-hour training course put on by the Missouri Sheriffs’ Association, along with crisis intervention training. The non-commissioned officers go through 60 to 90 days of on-the-job training.
“We have a training manual, so they go through and read the training manual and study it,” Craft said. “Then if something comes up, they’ll get the manual out and shows them the steps to follow."
Of course, there’s more to it than that.
“We don’t just turn these guys loose with a manual and a set of keys,” Schaaf said. “Even when we do turn them loose, so to speak, we try to keep them with somebody else that has more experience.”
<blockquote><hr /><h3 style="text-align: center;">"We need more people.”</h3><h4 style="text-align: center;">— Schaaf, on staffing at the Perry County Jail</h4><hr /><h4 style="text-align: center;"> </h4></blockquote>
A typical day shift is generally made up of two jailers, along with the supervisors. During the nighttime shifts, that number drops.
“It varies,” Schaaf said. “We try to keep at least one on and quite often that’s the case. There’s just one on. We need more people.”
Video surveillance is a big help, Schaaf said, but it’s not the best solution.
“We try to monitor them eyes on and also via the camera systems that we have,” Schaaf said, “but just for their own privacy, we don’t monitor inside each individual jail cell, although that’s been considered now that maybe we should start doing that. It’s unfortunate that we would have to do something like that.
“I mean, I want to give these guys some privacy — they’re still human — but when people start doing this kind of thing [making suicide attempts], you need to look at maybe going a step further and doing that.”
<h2>Part of the job</h2>
Suicide attempts and deaths in custody are rare, Schaaf said, especially in Perry County, but they can take a toll, not only on other inmates and family members, but also on those responsible for caring for the inmates.
“It’s part of the job,” Schaaf said. “These things are going to happen, and we try to impress upon them when they are applying here, that you’re going to come upon these kinds of things.”
<blockquote><hr /><h3 style="text-align: center;">“They’re down here because they did something wrong. That’s not the end of the world. You deal with it and then move on.”</h3><h5 style="text-align: center;">— Schaaf, on inmates at the Perry County Jail</h5><hr /><h5 style="text-align: center;"> </h5></blockquote>
It can also be a thankless job, Craft said, especially when inmates bend the truth in an attempt to elicit sympathy from family and friends.
“A lot of times, the stuff they’re telling them is not always the truth because they want them to feel sorry for them and to bond them out so they don’t have to be in this ‘horrible’ situation,” Craft said. “We’ve had inmates call and just flat out lie to their family and the family calls in, claiming we’re abusing them, not feeding them, mold in the Kool-Aid, and then they figure out that it’s not true.”
Jail isn’t meant to be a nice place, Schaaf said, but there’s no reason it has to be the last place anyone sees.
“They’re down here because they did something wrong,” Schaaf said. “That’s not the end of the world. You deal with it and then move on.”
