Yesterday I was exchanging thoughts with a reader on the subject of suicide. Is it preventable? Or if someone is determined to die, is it merely a matter of time?

There is one setting in which suicide is eminently preventable: prison. A person has limited access to deadly weapons, and is being monitored almost constantly. And yet in the past few weeks I've read so many articles about inmate suicide. It almost feels like an epidemic.

All the following headlines are from the last few weeks. The most sensational of them is about "Naked Guy," the Berkeley student who used to walk around nude in the early ’90s. (He's pictured here with clothes on.) But they're all tragic, no matter the person's reason for being behind bars. I wonder how precious those lives seem to prison officials, though. Maybe the guards are just happy to get rid of them.

There's no excuse for this kind of negligence. People don't have to die, no matter how disenfranchised they are or how dark their souls might seem. Maybe we need to get the anti-abortion crowd in on this. They're always blathering about saving lives. Perhaps they'd like to focus on some lives outside the womb.

•Inmate suicide second at S.L. County jail in 2 weeks
•Inmate's suicide reported
• San Quentin prison suicide identified
•Santa Clara Co. Jail Inmate Apparently Commits Suicide
•Hanging death at Bibb County jail ruled a suicide
• Inmate commits suicide at county jail
•Inmate kills himself in Coos County jail
•Suicidal inmate said he was depressed after burying girlfriend's body
•Infamous Berkeley 'Naked Guy' Dies In Jail Suicide