The father of a 30-year-old women’s prison inmate who hanged herself is questioning why she was in solitary confinement and not on suicide watch.

A corrections officer at the Women’s Community Correctional Center in Kailua found Jessica Fortson unconscious on July 11 and performed CPR until medical staff arrived. She died an hour later.

Richard Fortson, a Decatur, Ala., city councilman and former police officer, said he asked WCCC Warden Eric Tanaka whether his daughter, a minimum-­custody inmate, had ever attempted suicide before and was told she had.

“I said, ‘Why was she in a single cell by herself?’” said Fortson, who said his daughter had been diagnosed at one point with bipolar disorder and had been on medication for it and for bad seizures. “What is the policy? If she tried this before, you’d think there’s a suicide policy.”

The mother of a 13-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy, Fortson was serving a five-year sentence that began in 2015 for fraudulent use of a credit card, identity theft and unauthorized possession of confidential information. Her next parole hearing was scheduled for January, the Public Safety Department said.

Richard Fortson said his daughter got involved with a man who represented he was unmarried, and offered her his credit card to use. But the man was married, and when his wife found out, she turned Jessica Fortson in to police.

Richard Fortson said he spoke with a warden at a state prison in his home state of Alabama who told him that an inmate who has made a prior attempt at suicide would be kept under suicide watch.

“Something doesn’t sound right to me,” he said of the circumstances of his daughter’s death.

Public safety officials said Fortson was serving 30 days in a cell in solitary confinement for assaulting another inmate following an investigation and the inmate disciplinary hearings process.

Public safety spokeswoman Toni Schwartz said an internal investigation into her suicide is underway.

Fortson’s prison cell was considered appropriate since she was not on suicide watch at the time of her death, public safety officials said. She was assessed by medical staff and was cleared to serve her 30-day disciplinary sanction, they said.

The fact that an inmate has displayed suicidal tendencies is taken into account when they are assessed by staff, public safety officials said. There is no separate ward for the mentally ill at WCCC, only the infirmary.

Fortson wants to know whether prison officials violated the Department of Public Safety’s policies by putting his daughter in solitary confinement.

But the department’s suicide policy is confidential, the Honolulu Star-­Advertiser was told.

“We are keeping that policy confidential in order to save inmates’ lives,” Schwartz said in an email. “If they know the strategy we use to identify and prevent their harmful behavior, they will look for ways to circumvent it.”

Fortson said that after he began questioning the WCCC warden after his daughter’s death, the warden got quiet.

“So I have a lot of questions,” he said. “It’s not going to bring her back, but at least I’ll know the truth. … Maybe this saves somebody’s life.”

Fortson learned from the Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office that his daughter was found hanging by a bedsheet tied to a rod above a window. An investigator told him metal hooks also hung from the ceiling of the cell, which could have also been used for the same purpose and posed a potential danger.

After the correctional officer found her at about 8:20 p.m. and performed CPR, Emergency Medical Services arrived and transported her to a nearby hospital. Her condition deteriorated, and she was pronounced dead at 9:23 p.m., police said.

The Medical Examiner’s Office said the cause of death was hanging and the manner was suicide.

Police conducted a criminal investigation into Fortson’s death, but not on whether the prison followed department policies.

“We are confident that our practices are sound and we take suicide detection and prevention very seriously,” the department said in a statement, adding that its policies are routinely evaluated and suicide prevention training is ongoing with all staff.