By Cindy Stauffer
Intelligencer Journal/New Era
LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. — An inmate committed suicide Wednesday at Lancaster County Prison, authorities said, the third such incident this year.
Prison staff found Ronald P. Snyder, 26, of Elizabethtown, hanging in his cell at 5:42 p.m. Wednesday, Lancaster City Police Lt. Todd Umstead said. Efforts to revive him were not successful.
An autopsy conducted Thursday morning concluded that Snyder hanged himself. His death was ruled a suicide, county coroner Dr. Stephen G. Diamantoni said.
Snyder’s death follows suicides of other inmates in March and July at the prison. Both those inmates jumped over a railing to their deaths.
Warden Vincent Guarini said the prison likely will call in an outside expert to examine the three deaths.
“We will be reviewing it, the entire gamut,” he said. “It’s a cluster. That’s totally abnormal, and they’re all different.”
Snyder was facing rape charges.
Law enforcement officials had arrested him Tuesday at his girlfriend’s home in Bainbridge after he had failed to show up last week for a court hearing in his case.
He had been out on bail on the charge of raping an unconscious person. Police said he assaulted a woman in March while she was sleeping on a friend’s couch at an Elizabethtown home.
Better monitoring could have saved Snyder’s life, Mary Steffy said. She is spokeswoman for Have a Heart for Persons in the Criminal Justice System, a local group that has been examining the prison.
Every prisoner should be closely watched in the early days of his or her incarceration, Steffy said.
“When people are first in prison, that is, for most, a really traumatic event,” said Steffy, who also is executive director of Mental Health America of Lancaster County. “These people should be observed.”
Guarini said the prison staff tries to assess during the initial intake procedure whether an inmate is at risk of trying to commit suicide. During that assessment, medical and security staff ask the inmates a series of questions and look at their past history.
Snyder went through that assessment, he said.
After intake, inmates go to a processing unit, where they stay for a maximum of seven days. This was the unit where Snyder committed suicide, Guarini said.
Inmates are not monitored by cameras in their cells in this unit.
“It’s one of those unfortunate situations,” Guarini said. “If we can prevent things, we will prevent things, but you cannot prevent everything.”
Lancaster County Commissioners and prison board chairman Scott Martin said prison officials do look for potential red flags, such as prior suicidal tendencies.
Prison officials also are examining ways to prevent prisoners from jumping off mezzanines, the cause of the previous two suicides.
But, Martin said, “It’s a never-ending chess game when you’re dealing with someone with mental health issues.”
The only sure way to prevent suicides is by shackling and handcuffing inmates to their bunks, which obviously is not humane, he said.
Some people do not show signs of wanting to commit suicide, he said.
“Not everyone who kills themselves has mental health issues,” he said. “Some may have done it out of severe guilt over the offense they were engaged in. There may be many different reasons.”
He said he did not know the specifics of Snyder’s situation because he had not seen the full police report.
Steffy said she hopes someone will look into causes that could have led to Snyder’s suicide. Teams of mental health professionals and clergy have examined past suicides at the prison to try to identify such factors, she said.
In August, Have a Heart presented the county prison board with a research paper that asserted the prison has had too many suicides - 10 in the past 13 years.
Steffy said she thinks the prison is understaffed.
“There are other prisons who have had no suicides,” Steffy said. “I would like to think suicides could all be prevented when you’re in a contained setting like that. I think that’s the goal of prison board members as well.”
In general, Have a Heart officials were encouraged by prison officials’ response to the paper, Steffy said.
“They are really moving in the right direction,” she said.
But Steffy said she felt “great sadness” at Snyder’s death.
“It’s the waste of a life,” she said.
Copyright 2011 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.