Two California prisoners who died late last month became the 37th and 38th prisoners to die by suicide in the state’s prisons in 2019. Their deaths pushed the suicide rate among prisoners to 30.3 deaths per 100,000 incarcerated people — a 30-year high in the state.

This is the first time the suicide rate has topped 30 since the state began tracking the figure in 1990.

Throughout the 2000s, the rate fluctuated between about 14 and 26. Experts appointed by a federal court have long sounded alarms about those numbers, saying they are too high and reveal serious flaws in how the state delivers mental health care to prisoners. Despite these warnings, the suicide rate in California prisons has climbed for the past five years, setting records in 2018 and 2019.

The current prisoner suicide rate of 30.3 in California is higher than average for U.S. state prison systems — the national average is 20 — and more than double the rate in the general population.

The rising trend is “powerful evidence of ongoing failures” by California corrections staff, said Michael Bien, an attorney who represents mentally ill prisoners in the state. “They know what they need to do to identify, treat and properly monitor prisoners with serious mental illness, yet they repeatedly fail to follow their own policies and procedures.”

More Information If you need help National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Call 800-273-8255 to reach a counselor at a locally operated crisis center 24 hours a day for free. Crisis Text Line: Text “Connect” to 741741 to reach a crisis counselor any time for free.

Read More

The last two suicides of the year occurred Dec. 27 at Corcoran prison in Kings County and Dec. 31 at Sacramento prison in Folsom, said a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. According to figures provided by Bien, the suicide at Sacramento was the ninth of the year at that prison, which has a population of about 2,300 incarcerated men. Bien said the nine deaths there were an “astronomical number of suicides” for a single institution in a single year.

The Chronicle first revealed the rising suicide rate last year. On Dec. 24, when the number of suicides in 2019 had reached 36, a state prisons spokeswoman said officials are “concerned” and “committed to improving suicide prevention and mental health treatment delivery within our prisons.”

Earlier, in October, agency Secretary Ralph Diaz told The Chronicle that California has “an inmate suicide crisis,” and that prison leaders and psychiatric providers were committed to reducing the deaths.

Experts, judges and public officials have said for decades that California fails to give proper care to the state’s mentally ill prisoners, a population estimated at more than 30,000. In 1995, a federal court ruled that the prison system was violating the rights of these prisoners and needed to change its policies and practices.

Some reforms have been made since then, but a federal judge has criticized the state prison system for delaying crucial fixes. Experts dispatched by the court have found long wait times for mental health care, persistent shortages of prison psychiatrists and failures to monitor prisoners with suicidal tendencies.

The state prison system is working with the court to “ensure inmates receive the help they need,” the spokeswoman said.

If you need help

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Call 800-273-8255 to reach a counselor at a locally operated crisis center 24 hours a day for free.

Crisis Text Line: Text “Connect” to 741741 to reach a crisis counselor any time for free.

Jason Fagone is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jason.fagone@sfchronicle.com