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Comment by aldoushuxley001 | Hacker News Reader

Why was he not on suicide watch considering he just had a failed suicide attempt? Either that's gross incompetence or something more sinister

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Furious. Massive failure by the justice system to do its job. Epstein, a monster, was allowed to escape justice and take everything he knew with him. This all not to mention the power of those potentially implicated in his sick schemes and their interest in him being conveniently buried with his knowledge. This outcome is bad for all of us.

"Suicide watch" doesn't have a fixed meaning.

People on 15 minute observations can and do die by suicide.

If someone is at risk and you think obs are going to help (they don't always help, they can make things worse) you need to have them under full time obs.

But even then how close does that need to be? Two staff members within arms reach 24 hours of the day, including during eat, bathing, defecating?

> Inmates on suicide watch are generally placed in a special observation cell, surrounded with windows, with a bolted down bed and no bedclothes. A correction officer — or sometimes a fellow inmate trained to be a “suicide companion” — is typically assigned to sit in an adjacent office and monitor the inmate constantly.

> Robert Gangi, an expert on prisons and the former executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, said guards also generally take shoelaces and belts away from people on suicide watch.

> “If he’s on suicide watch, it's virtually impossible to kill yourself,” Mr. Gangi said.

> To take an inmate off suicide watch a “post-watch report” needs to be completed, which includes an analysis of how the inmate’s circumstances have changed and why that merits removal from the watch.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein-...

I thinking he would have been under some kind of regular watch and in a room with no sharp corners, no cables, no belt, ...

It’s going to be really interesting to hear how it happened.

People rip their clothing to form ligatures.

hanging only takes ~6 minutes until point of no return. if the neck is dislocated even immediate intervention cant accomplish much for the decedent.

It's also very difficult to, from "ground level" dislocate the neck thus. It was the "long drop and the sharp stop" in the gallows which caused neck dislocation (or in poor planning, even decapitation).

yes its most likely a gradual loading of the ligature rather than an abrupt drop. one would have to be fairly determined toward fate, and a bit athletic to incur cervical dislocation.

He was on suicide watch according to most articles on this. Which makes it more sinister.

Quoting the linked article:

He was reportedly on suicide watch following an earlier incident.

Ever been in a US jail? Gross incompetence is the rule, not the exception.

My understanding is that he was indeed on suicide watch.

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