Four straight days.

That’s how long former inmate Alex Oliveira said he was kept naked and in solitary confinement within the walls of the Bristol County House of Correction as part of what he said was suicide watch protocol at the Dartmouth jail.

“It’s such an oppressive, depressing environment,” he said. “Nothing makes a person want to commit suicide in jail like being on suicide watch.”

Oliveira spoke to Dartmouth Week about his treatment and that of other inmates in the wake of a spate of suicides at the Faunce Corner Road facility. A spokesperson for the Bristol County Sheriff’s Department denies mistreatment of inmates.

As Oliveira tells it, his placement on suicide watch was done as punishment for taking a shower at the wrong time.

“I just sat down, and a guard came up to me and told me to get up and that I was going on suicide watch,” he said.

Oliveira said he was not feeling suicidal.

“Sure, I was maybe a bit depressed at the time, but I never told anyone,” he said.

Once on “watch,” he said the only contact he had was with the nurse during daily medicine distribution, or the occassional check-in from a guard.

While not responding directly to Oliveira’s situation, sheriff’s office spokesperson Jonathan Darling said the conditions described by Oliveira are only seen in the more extreme cases. He said most of those who are placed on suicide watch are allowed the same amount of recreation time as other inmates. Those on 24-hour “eyeball watch,” he said, have either previously attempted suicide or have told the jail’s mental health clinician that they felt suicidal.

“It’s not used as a punishment,” Darling said. A corrections officer “could alert medical [personnel] but the clinician is ultimately the one who decides that placement.”

Speaking more broadly of the way suicide watch is handled at the jail, Oliveira said guards tend to be very relaxed with their duties, with many failing to do proper check-ins with those on suicide watch.

He said most inmates on suicide watch are provided with only an anti-suicide smock inmates refer to as a “turtle suit,’’ which he said “barely covers a person’s midsection.”

“Nothing but the sound of screaming and the fan whirring,” he said. “Sometimes they don’t turn the heat on, and I’ve heard cases of inmates getting frostbite from being naked in freezing cells.”

Darling said the allegations were “untrue” and that those under 24-hour watch are looked after by guards throughout the day, along with check-ins for less serious cases every 15 to 30 minutes. He said the smocks are designed to prevent inmates from being able to hang themselves. “We take this very seriously,” he said.

This year, there were at least three inmate deaths by suicide confirmed by the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office.

The first was an unidentified 35-year-old man who died by suicide after spending just one night at the jail in August.

A month later, 39-year-old New Bedford resident Gary Pimentel also took his own life while at the Dartmouth jail. He was pronounced dead at St. Luke’s Hospital.

On Oct. 27, Samantha Pento of Swansea, 31, took her own life by hanging. She was alone in her cell and pronounced dead the next day in St. Luke’s Hospital.

All three deaths are currently under investigation by the Massachusetts State Police assigned to the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office, Darling said.

Between 2016 and 2018, the jail saw five inmate suicides, according to a 2019 report from the Massachusetts State Auditor.

The report also noted that there were four unsuccessful suicide attempts in 2016 and two in 2017, but found the suicide rate at the Dartmouth facility in the time period studied to be “similar to that of other Sheriffs’ Departments in the Commonwealth.”

Nevertheless, suicides at the Dartmouth jail have been at the center of statewide discussion for years. In 2018, state Attorney General Maura Healey asked the state to investigate the jail following a series of lawsuits filed against the sheriff’s office. In those lawsuits, inmates alleged those placed in suicide watch units face poor conditions, including small units, limited time outside of the segregation cells, denial of social, recreational, educational, and rehabilitation programs, and a filthy and noisy environment.

Oliveira said from his experiences, the depictions in the lawsuits are “spot on.”

Darling denied the reports of mistreatment and the claim that the Bristol County facility is not doing enough to prevent suicides.

“Nowhere in the world is 100 percent suicide-proof,” he said.