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The number of fatalities diverged dramatically from previous years, the agency said. No one in DOC custody died by suicide last year, and there was a single suicide among the inmate population in 2023 and again in 2022, the statement said. “Every person in our custody deserves safety, dignity, and care,” DOC Commissioner Shawn Jenkins said in a statement. On Wednesday, an agency spokesperson said Jenkins, who was appointed last year by Governor Maura Healey, was not doing interviews. The DOC said it has named Sharen Barboza, a clinical psychologist with experience working in corrections, to review the incidents and propose recommendations to make improvements to mental health care, supervision, and prison operations. The DOC said it also plans to reinforce suicide prevention training for staff, which has been approved by Dr. Reena Kapoor, a forensic psychiatrist. Kapoor was appointed in 2022 to monitor the agency’s implementation of reforms to improve care for prisoners with mental illness. The improvements were mandated by the federal government after the US Department of Justice found in 2020 that the state prison agency wasn’t adequately supervising inmates facing mental health crises. The department said it also plans to continue protocols aimed at providing timely clinical care to at-risk prisoners, “enhance” programming and clinical support, and expand support for correction officers who have responded to the suicides and apparent suicides. A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union declined to comment on Wednesday. Four of the apparent suicides by incarcerated men have taken place in the last six weeks, beginning on Sept. 20 at MCI-Norfolk. A week later, on Sept. 27, another man died of an apparent suicide at the same facility, the DOC said. Attorney Patty DeJuneas, who represents clients incarcerated at the prison in Norfolk, identified the men as Christopher Stiles and Robert McNickles. She said Stiles and McNickles were known to use the synthetic cannabinoid known as K2, which has infiltrated the state’s prison system despite agency efforts to combat it. The men were housed in the behavioral assessment unit at the prison when they died, DeJuneas said Wednesday. She said the DOC’s plan doesn’t go far enough to prevent mental health crises that push people to kill themselves and fails to address the K2 crisis. “This addresses people who are actively in crisis,” DeJuneas said Wednesday. “It doesn’t do anything to prevent people from going into crisis in the first place. The conditions of their confinement and their access to drugs shouldn’t be pushing them to the point where they have to go on mental health watch.” DeJuneas said the agency has an addiction counselor at Souza-Baranowski, but nowhere else in the system, and its addiction treatment program at MCI-Norfolk is overrun with illegal drugs. “There’s nothing to help these guys with K2, which is making them suicidal,” she said. In an email Wednesday, the DOC described efforts to stop the flow of K2, including the use of technology, drug-detection dogs, and mail-handling procedures to intercept the substances. The agency said it collaborates with its health services providers to offer substance abuse treatment. Dave Rini, executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts, said the organization is concerned about how many confirmed and suspected suicides occurred among men being held in restrictive units. In addition to the deaths involving two men reportedly being housed in a behavioral assessment unit at MCI-Norfolk, Rini said the group has received reports that at least some of the deaths at Souza occurred in a treatment unit where prison leaders recently imposed more restrictive measures. “DOC has a lot of control over the day-to-day life of everyone in their custody,” he said. “We should be seeing zero suicides.” Rini said state prison officials have been repeatedly pressed in litigation and through the DOJ investigation to address the detrimental impacts that segregation and restrictive housing arrangements have on prisoners. The agency’s efforts to stop the flow of K2 and treat people who are using synthetic cannabinoid haven’t been effective, he said. Rini also questioned why the DOC announced its suicide prevention action plan after six people died, including two deaths in September over a span of seven days. “That should be on its own a bright red flare to leadership that something‘s going on and we need to take action,” he said. “It’s not clear that they did, and clearly what action they did take didn’t work.” Earlier this month, a federal judge approved a $6 million settlement to end litigation over a clash between prisoners and correction officers at Souza-Baranowski. The money is to be distributed among 150 inmates. They sued, alleging they were brutalized by staff in retaliation for an attack on guards on Jan. 10, 2020.
