By Shakeil Price / Prison Journalism Project
It was a week after last Thanksgiving. The Philadelphia Eagles had lost to the San Francisco 49ers, 42-19. Ahmed and I were on the second tier of our prison unit conducting our makeshift Parenting From Prison support group. We were updating each other on how our children were doing without their fathers.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a large figure falling. That was followed by a loud thud as a man hit the concrete beneath us. We looked over the railing to see the man sprawled on the ground.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” the unit officer yelled. “He f—— jumped! The guy jumped!”
“Everybody lock in! Code 53, 6 Right!” he barked into his radio, signaling the request for medical assistance.
Ahmed and I looked at each other, shocked. My heart was pounding in panic. “I’m out,” Ahmed said as he scurried off to the bottom tier, where his cell was located.
I continued to look over the railing to see if the man was moving. He was still alive, groaning and trying to shift his body around. I was amazed there was no sight of blood.
A guard ordered him to lie still and await medical attention. When the prison medical staff arrived, they wouldn’t touch him. They called 911. It took nearly an hour for paramedics to come into the prison and carefully lift him off the concrete. When they did, they put his neck in a brace to keep it steady and placed him onto a gurney with specialized back support.
Miraculously, he survived this ordeal. The man is now back at the prison after spending several weeks at the hospital in intensive care.
Watching him fall to the concrete tested my psyche. Life inside New Jersey State Prison is a volatile distress zone. Throughout my 16 years of incarceration, I’ve endured countless traumatic experiences. I’ve witnessed stabbings, gang assaults by inmates, and assaults by staff on inmates.
But seeing that man jump off of the third tier was the most devastating incident I have experienced in prison. His suicide attempt changed my perspective on the psychological issues that develop as a result of serving an extended stay in prison.
After witnessing this horrific event, I made a conscious effort to focus on my mental wellness. I practiced yoga and meditated regularly to fight the decades of isolation, stress and trauma placed on my mental health. I write, exercise and adhere to a strict, healthy diet.
From 2001 to 2019, the number of suicides increased 85% in state prisons, 61% in federal prisons and 13% in local jails, according to data from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Researchers are concerned about the rising rates of suicide among incarcerated people. As Dr. Debra A. Pinals explained in a Pew Research Center article, prisons are overrepresented by people with behavioral health conditions, such as mental illness and substance use disorders, often mixed with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Jails and prisons “have become … de facto mental health institutions, which the facilities were never intended to be, she wrote.
After the suicide attempt, I sat in my cell and contemplated all of the possible sources of his despair.
Thanksgiving had just happened: Did he miss his family? Did he receive disturbing news from his family? Did he have mental health issues? Perhaps it was all of the above. Research has shown that suicide is often caused by a combination of factors. I haven’t seen this man since the incident — he lives in a different part of the prison than me — and haven’t had the chance to ask him these questions directly.
Lying on my cot that December night, I tossed and turned, unable to sleep. During the day, I couldn’t concentrate. I kept replaying the event over and over again in my head. Again I began to panic.
Would the stress and depression of prison life take its emotional toll on me? Would I ever get to that final point? Would the sadness overshadow the feelings of what suicide would do to my family? Can my mental fortitude withstand this endless cycle of trauma?
Only time will tell.
Recently, unable to sleep, I turned on my TV in my cell. The local news was reporting on the psychological and emotional effects of the war on children trapped in Gaza.
I had an epiphany: New Jersey State Prison is also a war zone.