Assessing Suicide and Risk Behaviors in an Incarcerated American Indian Population: Investigating Culturally Sensitive Risk Assessment Instruments and Procedures in a Border Jail, Final Report (2003)

"In 1997, the administrator of a County Jail, located in the Northern Plains of the United States contacted these researchers with his concerns about the incidence of suicide behaviors occurring in that facility, particularly among the American Indian population. Seeking assistance in ensuring and where necessary, developing a best practices approach to suicide management in his facility, the administrator agreed to collaborate with researchers from the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in designing and carrying out a study geared toward discovering and identifying two essential types of information. First, because the admission screening tool used in the County Jail to interview inmates at their intake into the jail facility was developed in New York and consequently embraced by this jail (and many other jails across the country) as its screening instrument, one research objective was to determine if that instrument was culturally appropriate for use with the County Jail population, particularly with the American Indian population. Second, the principle objective of the second year of this hnded research was to determine whether the employment of different suicide screening protocols would make a difference in the responses of new detainees with regard to the likelihood of securing their honest reports of experiencing suicide ideation and it’s associated risk factors."