Corrections officers at Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna found 36-year-old Brandon Panchigar unconscious in his cell after a suicide attempt on January 11; Panchigar died on route to a hospital.
While Panchigar’s death is one of five in DOC custody since the beginning of January, it is the first death by suicide in Delaware prisons in over a year.
DOC has seen a sustained decline in suicide deaths since 2015: a notable trend at a time when suicide rates are rising in many state and local correctional systems elsewhere in the country.
From 2008 to 2015, Delaware averaged 2.75 deaths by suicide a year. From 2015 to the present, it’s seen an average of fewer than one suicide a year and did not see a single death by suicide in 2022.
Because Delaware is one of only six states with a unified corrections system — meaning the same agency manages both pretrial and post-conviction detention — comparisons to prison or jail suicide statistics from neighboring states would be incomplete. However, average suicide rates in both jails and prisons are rising on the national level, setting Delaware apart.
DOC Healthcare Chief Michael Records says he can’t tie the trend to any particular change in policy or practice. “I don’t know of anything that we have drastically changed since 2015," he said, though he adds that the agency's early intervention efforts likely play a key role in the reduction in suicide deaths.
Those interventions include a mental health screening of every person arriving that includes questions about self-harm and suicidal ideation.
“Within 24 hours, anyone that’s answering positively or seems depressed is going to see a mental health clinician for a comprehensive mental health evaluation," he said.
Anyone deemed a potential suicide risk is placed in one of two levels of psychiatric close observation: either constant monitoring or a check-in every ten minutes. Stays in psychiatric close observation can last as little as a day or as long as several weeks, and the number of people under observation can vary widely from day to day.
Upon release from observation, Records says that many people in custody may remain on a so-called "mental health roster" and receive more routine check-ins with mental health staff, and some pass back and forth between observation and general housing units on a routine basis.
Records adds DOC also provides suicide prevention training to all officers — including annual retraining courses — and recently began the process of certifying a group of men in custody at Howard R. Young Correctional Center in Wilmington as peer support specialists.
The agency is also introducing suicide-resistant beds — designed to limit opportunities for self-harm — in the pretrial units at Howard R. Young. "It can be difficult — we have to abide by standards, and we can't have people sleeping on mattresses on the floor," Records said. "[But] we're hoping to have more [suicide-resistant] bunks purchased and retrofitted."
Panchigar, who had spent much of his adult life passing in and out of prison, filed a lawsuit against the DOC last February accusing the agency of medical neglect and retaliation, describing himself as seriously mentally ill and claiming to have attempted suicide at least twice while in custody.
A federal judge dismissed Panchigar's lawsuit on the grounds that he hadn't stated an actionable constitutional claim. Panchigar then filed an amended complaint with additional details, which the judge dismissed for technical errors. Though the judge offered Panchigar another opportunity to file a complaint, he didn't do so ahead of a December 16 deadline, prompting the court to close his case on January 9 — two days before Panchigar's death.
Prior to Panchigar, the most recent person to die by suicide in DOC custody was Quinn Annable, a 20-year-old University of Delaware student held in pretrial custody at Howard R. Young. Annable died in October 2021.
Most deaths in DOC custody involve chronic or terminal illnesses, often taking place in prison infirmaries or in nearby hospitals.
