In 2020, Nina, 29 years old, saw nothing but understood everything. “Everything echoed in the corridor.” She was in her cell at the Joux-la-Ville detention centre (France) when she heard the jolt of a defibrillator and the rustle of a plastic sheet. Nina realised that a fellow incarcerated person, a Nigerian woman without relatives or loved ones in France, had just passed away.

Although suicides are typically caused by multiple factors, certain moments during incarceration seem to be particularly delicate. Examples include entry into detention, which can trigger a “penitentiary shock” – the brutal stupefaction that accompanies being imprisoned for the first time – as well as the pronouncement of a prison sentence or a transfer to a different facility. The prison conditions also play a role.

In Romania, for example, the average length of detention is 25 months – compared with 11 in France. Dragos Octavian Stan, 37 years old, spent nine months at Mioveni Prison, northwest of Bucharest. He was 140 kilometres away from his wife and daughter, who lived in Alexandria, south of Bucharest near the Bulgarian border. He rarely ever saw them. Since his release in June 2024, he has headed up the Liga Detinutilor, an organisation founded the same year that supports 260 people, including 120 who are currently incarcerated, with reintegration. With a tribal tattoo on his skull and a jacket that matches his green eyes, Dragos Octavian Stan explains that he always keeps his phone at hand: “An incarcerated man called me two days ago to tell me he wanted to end it all. He no longer spoke to his family, so his only connection was with me.”

The prevalence of psychiatric disorders among people entering detention is, on average, three times higher than in the general population, according to findings from a study on mental health among prison leavers, “La Santé Mentale en Population Carcérale Sortante”, published in 2022.

In 2023 in France, 148 incarcerated individuals – of 80,000 incarcerated individuals total – died by suicide, i.e. one death every three days. This count was established by the collective “The Deceased in Prison” (Les Morts de la Prison), as neither the Ministry of Justice nor the prison service keep a record of them. Hungary and Romania have lower rates of suicides – one and three suicides per 10,000 incarcerated individuals, respectively – compared with France, which is at 19. Romania recorded nine suicides in 2025, according to information provided by the prison service to StreetPress. In Hungary, the only available data are those in the SPACE report produced by the Council of Europe, which counted seven suicides in detention for 2022.

“In France, the risk of suicide is 20 times higher in the disciplinary units than in the rest of the prison population”, says Alexis Vanhaesebrouck, a public health researcher. Known as “lockdown” or “the dungeon” among incarcerated people, these units are described as “prisons within prisons” by those who have spent time there. People are sent there as punishment for misconduct: 9 m2 of concrete, without any activities, alone, with no personal belongings, for up to thirty days. The French branch of the International Prison Observatory – an independent, French NGO – considers them “as inhumane as they are counterproductive” and advocates for them to stop being used.

Eighteen-year-old Sacha Chapert hanged himself using shoelaces on 27 April 2021 in a disciplinary unit at the Saint-Brieuc remand prison. A quiet guy, he was incarcerated after stealing from the till at the supermarket where he worked. The teen was placed in the disciplinary unit following a fight, after which he spent several days pleading with management by letter to split up his sentence. “He tried to hang himself two days before his death. He would say to me, ‘My spirit can’t go through the window’”, says his mother, Loriane Aït-Hammou. She lodged a complaint for “negligent manslaughter”. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture notes that the maximum duration of solitary confinement “should not exceed fourteen days”.

Looking back on his six years in Hungarian prisons, Mario remembers a fellow incarcerated person who was sent to the disciplinary unit of Balassagyarmat, in the northeast of the country, in 2013. He had asked staff for help after being beaten by other incarcerated people. “He was punished in place of his attackers. He hanged himself shortly after”, Mario recalls.

“My son has suicidal thoughts. I’m afraid he’ll act on them”, says Safia worriedly. Her 34-year-old son Balazs is incarcerated at Csenger, a Hungarian high-security facility on the border with Romania, which opened in the spring, where he has no one to confide in about his distress. He has only been able to speak to a psychologist twice, despite his numerous requests – and only via video call. Lili Kramer, a criminologist at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HCC), says this situation is widespread: “In the average prison, two to five psychologists must look after around 600 incarcerated individuals”. From 1995 to 2017, the HHC conducted a monitoring programme on prison conditions, before the government unilaterally terminated the cooperation agreements. The Hungarian prison service commented to StreetPress: “On their arrival in prison, incarcerated people undergo a thorough medical and psychological examination. Treatment is always personalised and provided by psychologists employed by the facilities.”

At the Rahova penitentiary centre, about ten kilometres from Bucharest (Romania), there are 1,500 spaces, 121% overcrowding and just one psychiatrist. “She also handles paperwork”, notes Georgiana Gheorghe, Executive Director of the Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Romania – one of the few Romanian organisations that monitors the respect for fundamental rights in prisons. At the facility in Fleury-Mérogis (France), which holds 4,808 incarcerated individuals, the regional medical and psychological service only has 18 spaces for men and nine for women. They are constantly occupied.

Pascale Giravalli, president of an organisation dedicated to the psychiatric sectors in the carceral environment (Association des Secteurs de Psychiatrie en Milieu Pénitentiaire) in France, notes that there are other challenges besides insufficient capacities: “The medical staff face care access conditions that have only deteriorated with the increase in security and enforcement measures within prisons.” The Hungarian lawyer Batki Pal says that one of his clients was disciplined with eight days of solitary confinement. During that time, his only interactions were with the officer who opened his door every 24 hours to ask him: “Suicide?”

“Death is still a taboo in our line of work. It is even absent from our training”, reports Wilfried Fonck, the national secretary of the French penitentiary union UFAP-UNSa Justice. In the facility in Fleury-Mérogis, in France, the surveillance officers in the disciplinary unit only receive two days of training on suicide prevention. “The signs become recognisable with experience. Sometimes, talking about suicide is also a way to get out of prison. We have to separate ‘the truth from the lies’”, remarks one officer, further mentioning the risk of “blackmail”, although this risk has not been proven.

In Romania, no specific training on the subject is provided to prison staff. “Suicide is not really an issue in our case”, the vice president of the primary Romanian penitentiary union, Adrian Neagoe, says dismissively. In the 78-page activity report published by the Romanian prison service for 2024, a review by StreetPress revealed only one brief mention of suicide.

In Romania, the authorities launched an action plan in 2017 following a decision of the European Court of Human Rights that aimed to improve prison conditions. “The prison service relies heavily on rehabilitation and maintaining family ties”, explains Ioan Durnescu, a Romanian criminologist and professor at the University of Bucharest. He further notes: “Most of the people incarcerated in Romania are held in cells of four to 12 people. This could represent a major deterring factor against suicide.”

In France, a nationwide suicide prevention strategy was launched in 2009 and has been regularly adjusted since, although it has not successfully reduced the number of these deaths. The suicide rate actually rose 12.9% between 2022 and 2023, according to the Directorate of Prison Administration. “We can do better than waking a person up in the middle of the night or putting them in paper clothing [Ed.: anti-suicide pyjamas] in an emergency protection cell, even if this remains useful”, observes Wilfried Fonck. One of the initiatives put into place, “support prisoners”, inspired by the British model, is, in the opinion of Gaëtan Cliquennois, Head of Research at CNRS, “a way to shift responsibility onto other incarcerated persons and absolve the prison service of any responsibility”.

Further east, Hungary has adopted a high-security response, explains the criminologist Agnes Solt. This is reflected in “cameras in the solitary confinement cells, more frequent rounds and plexiglass on the bars, in particular for people serving long sentences”. The Csenger facility, also known as the “smart prison”, seems to be a test laboratory for these measures. According to a former manager in the prison service, “systems to monitor movements and facial expressions, as well as connected wristbands to detect at-risk behaviours” are expected to be installed there. The Hungarian carceral system follows an almost military model. In fact, its prisons are under the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior rather than the Ministry of Justice. The medical staff depend on a hybrid and highly hierarchical framework, which sometimes limits their independence with respect to the prison service. “Numerous psychologists are also employed by the prison, which should not be the case. In some facilities, the psychologists and members of the medical staff wear the same uniform as the guards. These circumstances do not encourage trust between the incarcerated people and the psychologists”, notes Lili Kramer regretfully. A former manager at the prison service qualifies this assessment: “In reality, the prison service is reluctant to challenge medical opinions for fear of taking on responsibility in an area where it lacks expertise.”

For Philippa Tomczak, a criminologist at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, any effective policy for suicide prevention in prison must be based on reliable data. This would require correctly measuring and quantifying mortality in detention in Europe: “We tend to act as though these cases are rare or exceptional, but in reality, they are part of everyday life in prison.” The Council of Europe has invited its member states to establish clear protocols to respond to self-harm and suicide attempts and provide mental health training to penitentiary personnel. However, in the opinion of Pascale Giravalli, president of an organisation dedicated to the psychiatric sectors in the carceral environment (Association des Secteurs de Psychiatrie en Milieu Pénitentiaire), these measures alone are insufficient – we must also challenge prison’s role as the model for punishment.