Globe Coverage of Prison Suicides

The Boston Globe has done a popular series of stories and videos on the rate of suicide in Massachusetts prisons and treatment of prisoners.

Although the story is about two months old, I just got to watch Death in Cell 49, which is a two part story about Nelson Rodriguez, a mentally disabled inmate who took his own life in 2005.

The video itself is typical of online news videos. It's done more like a documentary than a tv news piece, with a reporter as a narrator, interviews, photos and background music. The story of Nelson Rodriguez is sad in itself, but what made this story stand out for me was the other features that the Globe was able to add online.

There is a small slideshow of documents related to Nelson and his suicide, a slideshow of family photos and old snapshots of Nelson, a video tour of the prison (for members of boston.com only) and the most affecting of all for me, Nelson's personal letters to his family from inside prison (again, only for boston.com members - it's free to sign up.)

I think that the letters in particular really add to the story because just by quickly reading them, it's obvious that Nelson was not really capable of understanding his surroundings or what was going on in his life. Although this is mentioned in the story, as is his suicide attempts, actually reading his own words almost acts as proof to the reader that what was said in the story was true. I think that this was a great feature to have because besides giving the story a new dimesion for the reader, things like government and personal documents almost act as evidence for readers, especially in a time when many people are distrusting of the media and its motives.