Justice

How to Stop Jail Suicides

Sandra Bland’s death was preventable on multiple levels. A jail architect explains how design failed her nearly as badly as the police.
Demonstrators hold signs picturing Sandra Bland and Kindra Chapman, both of whom died in police custody, during a protest in New York.Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Sandra Bland’s death in a Texas county jail cell was likely a suicide, according to a prosecutor in Waller County, where she was arrested earlier in July over a minor traffic stop. An autopsy found no signs of struggle or any other evidence consistent with a homicide. Yet her death was always preventable.

As Bland’s family struggles to process what happened, a picture of negligence is growing clearer. Law enforcement failed Bland at every turn: From the Texas state trooper who needlessly escalated a minor traffic stop to violence to the inadequate intake procedures at Waller County Jail to the bail-bonding industry that kept her incarcerated there.