Prisoner suicide is suicide by an inmate in a jail or prison. Risk factors Signs that a prisoner may be at risk of suicide include giving away valued possessions, speaking as if they are not going to be around much longer even though they are not scheduled for release, withdrawing, becoming acutely intoxicated, having a recent history of severe addiction, being threatened or assaulted by other prisoners, having a history of psychiatric hospitalizations or suicide attempts, talking about death, having recently been arrested for an offense punishable by a long sentence or actually sentenced to a lengthy term, or having impulse-control problems. Prisoners who have recently received bad news from home or are demonstrating an inability to adapt to the institutional environment may also be at higher risk. Objective tests such as the Beck Depression Inventory are of limited usefulness because a malingerer may fake signs of being suicidal while a prisoner who does not want to be stopped from committing suicide may hide signs of being suicidal. Prisoners with illnesses are at higher risk of suicide. Prisoners with AIDS have a suicide rate between 16 and 36 times higher than that of the general population. Incidence In the United States, the suicide rate among prisoners is four times as high as among the general population , but it is unknown whether this is because of the prison environment or because persons with marked suicidal tendencies are more liable to be imprisoned for crime. The apparent motivations for prison suicide are most commonly fear of other inmates, of the consequences of one's crime, or imprisonment, and the loss of a significant relationship. Suicides occur most commonly in isolation cells. The most common time for suicides to occur is in the early morning hours. Suicidal inmates are sometimes put on suicide watch. A study in New York found that 41% of prison suicides involved inmates who had recently received mental health services, although only one-third of prison suicides are found to have a psychiatric history, as opposed to 80–90 percent of suicides in the general community. Pretrial detainees tend to have higher rates of suicide than other inmates, with about a third of all prison suicides occurring within the first week of custody. Custodial suicide is the leading cause of death among detainees housed in jails. According to data by the Council of Europe, in the Balkans the suicide rate in