Even at the present time in our Navy the rate is much higher than among civilians. From a Report on the Health of the Navy, 1883, I find there were among 43,350 officers and men, 255 deaths; 176 from disease, 79 from injury, and 6 suicides. This gives a death-rate of only 5·88 per thousand, with a suicide rate of 138·5 per million.
Prison Life.
Prisoners have a higher suicide rate than civilians at liberty, especially if we consider attempts at suicide.
It is usual to make a distinction between convicts whose fate is settled, and prisoners arrested, and untried, or at least not convicted. For instance, Morselli gives for
| England: | Prisoners, | 1,100; | Convicts, | 350, |
| France: | „ | 750; | „ | 80, |
as the relative rates of voluntary death.
Female prisoners give a very high rate in Denmark and Italy, and suicides of females are more numerous than those of males in the prisons of these two states.
More than half of Prisoner Suicides are of men and women convicted of crimes against the person.
The longer a prisoner remains in a convict prison, the less is the tendency to suicide; most prisoners become used to the mode of life under a year of confinement.
Solitary confinement produces a greater suicide tendency than associated imprisonment, and the systems of mixed prisoners.