Related to the Epstein case; I work as a mental health counselor in a jail, and my primary responsibilities are suicide risk assessments and clearing people off of suicide observations. AMA.

We have a psychiatrist and nurse practitioner here who provide medications, however since we are not a treatment facility we cannot force anyone to take medications. So often times we encouraged them to consider medications to help throughout the process.

Generally they only remain on suicide observation for threats and imminent risk of harming self. They have to remain on the the observation pod for at least 24 hours, then they can be assessed (by me) to determine if they can step down to a lower observation. If they are no longer suicidal but still remain sad/depressed/distressed, then they are stepped down to a mental health pod. The mental health pod is still pretty restrictive. They have to spend at least 72 hours on the mental health pod, then they will be assessed to determine if they need to stay there, drop down to the next lower level of care (we try to avoid this one), or just return to general population with some additional precautions on their record.

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