Newly released numbers show that Wisconsin’s suicide rate in 2011 saw its largest single-year plunge of the past 20 years, but the significance of this change is hard to determine.

Key findings:
• Wisconsin’s county-run jails are overloaded with people with mental illness — but services are largely inadequate.
• The state Department of Corrections is charged with oversight but does not evaluate the quality of jails’ mental health care.
• For nearly a quarter-century, the Legislature has required the DOC to collect and summarize annual reports on jails’ mental health care, but most jails have not provided the information, and the DOC acknowledges it has not been asking for them.
• One-third of Wisconsin’s jails have been cited for inadequate suicide prevention efforts.

About this story
Jenny Peek and Kate Prengaman reported this story with other journalism students in a UW-Madison class taught by Professor Deborah Blum, in collaboration with the nonprofit, nonpartisan Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and the Investigative Journalism Education Consortium, which includes Midwestern university journalism professors and students working on news projects in the public [...]

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Our package on Native American suicides was published across the country, thanks to the help of Native media organizations.

Educational resources and statistics; suicide prevention tips; crisis lines and other places to seek help. Includes links specific to Native American suicides.

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