RT Article
T1 Suicide in Scottish prisons: a methodological note
JF Legal and criminological psychology
VO 1
IS 2
SP 287
OP 293
A1 Cooke, David J. 1952-
A2 Michie, Christine
LA English
YR 1996
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1847462375
AB Fifteen suicides occurred in Scottish prisons in 1994; this appeared to represent a dramatic increase over the rate in previous years. It is argued that rare random events tend to cluster and give the false impression of significant change. In order to determine whether the number of suicides in 1994 was unusually high the number of prison suicides between 1976 and 1994 were compared with a Poisson distributon. Corrections for variations in the size of the prison population and variations in the rate of suicide in the general population indicated that the rise in prison suicides was less dramatic than initial impressions had suggested. The implications for policy and practice are discussed.
DO 10.1111/j.2044-8333.1996.tb00326.x