Illinois Deaths in Custody 2010 – 2019: A Preliminary Factsheet

2012

2016

(BJS) is tasked with tracking the number of police-involved homicides in a given year. Over a ten-year period, the BJS published the average number of police-involved homicides at 400 annually. However, the BJS's ability to provide accurate information in this area is woefully lacking because of systemic failures in its data collection from law enforcement agencies. These deficiencies result in hundreds of police-involved homicides being unreported. What results is an incomplete picture for local, state, and federal agencies to make assessments as to how the over 18,000 law enforcement agencies are performing concerning the use of force, training, and de-escalation techniques. Several non-profits and news agencies have filled in the gap created by the BJS to portray an accurate picture of how many lives are taken by police officers in a given year. Their efforts show that close to 1,000 people are killed by police under the use of force doctrine-a figure over twice as high as the BJS published. A growing concern over law enforcement's use-of-deadly force prompted Congress to enact the Death-in-Custody Reporting Act (DCRA), signed into law in December 2014. The simplicity of the DCRA should allow the BJS to collect accurate data in the future. However, the DCRA still relies solely on self-reporting from law enforcement agencies as a base for its data analysis. This article examines the police-involved homicides of John Crawford, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice to highlight the errors that can easily happen in data collection and suggests remedies to ensure accurate account of the number of police-involved homicides in

2017

Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine, 1999

All medico-legal cases from the Lancaster County Coroner's Office in Lincoln, Nebraska USA, between 1991 and 1996, were reviewed for deaths which occurred in custody. The leading causes of death, in ranked order include: natural 45.1% (), suicide 33.3% (), homicide 11.8% (), accident 7.8% (), and undetermined 2% (). Each cause of death was explored using the following variables: cause of death, age, sex, and race of the decedents. The findings of this investigation are compared with previous studies in other geographic regions of the country. Many similarities and differences in the frequencies of the modes of death are discussed. In addition, six unusual case studies including one accidental death, one homicide, and four suicides are presented and may serve as a reference for pathologists, forensic physicians and other forensic scientists confronted with aberrant cases.

JAMA Network Open, 2021

IMPORTANCE More than 50 000 youths are incarcerated in the United States on any given day, and youth incarceration has been linked to lasting adverse outcomes, including early mortality. Improving our understanding of the factors associated with early mortality among incarcerated youths can inform appropriate prevention strategies. OBJECTIVE To examine mortality rates and causes of death among youths previously incarcerated in the juvenile legal system. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This retrospective longitudinal population-based cohort study compared mortality rates between youths aged 11 to 21 years incarcerated from 2010 to 2017 with same-aged nonincarcerated Medicaid-enrolled youths in the state of Ohio. Data from January 2017 to December 2019 were collected from juvenile incarceration, Medicaid, and death certificate information in Ohio. EXPOSURE Incarceration in the state of Ohio's juvenile legal system. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Number, characteristics, and causes of deaths. Poisson regression incidence rate ratios (IRRs) compared mortality rates between previously incarcerated and Medicaid-enrolled youths. RESULTS Among 3645 incarcerated youths, 3398 (93.2%) were male, 2155 (59.1%) Black, 1307 (35.9%) White, and 183 (5.0%) other race and ethnicity. Overall, 113 youths (3.1%) died during the study period. Homicide was the leading cause of death in formerly incarcerated youths (homicide: 63 [55.8%]; legal intervention [ie, death due to injuries inflicted by law enforcement]: 3 [2.7%]). All-cause mortality rates were significantly higher among previously incarcerated youths than Medicaid-enrolled youths (adjusted IRR [aIRR], 5.91; 95% CI, 4.90-7.13) in every demographic subgroup. Compared with Medicaid-enrolled youths, mortality rates for previously incarcerated youths were highest for homicide (aIRR, 11.02; 95% CI, 8.54-14.22), overdose (aIRR, 4.32; 95% CI, 2.59-7.20), and suicide (aIRR, 4.30; 95% CI, 2.22-8.33). Formerly incarcerated Black youths had a significantly higher risk of homicide (aIRR, 14.24; 95% CI, 4.45-45.63) but a lower risk of suicide (aIRR, 0.18; 95% CI, 0.04-0.89) and overdose (aIRR, 0.31; 95% CI, 0.10-0.99) than White youths who were incarcerated. Previously incarcerated youths aged 15 to 21 years were significantly more likely to die than youths aged 22 to 29 years, irrespective of cause of death (aIRR for youths aged 22-29 years, 0.09; 95% CI, 0.06-0.14).

Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 2014

The right to be treated humanely when detained is universally recognized. Deficiencies in detention conditions and violence, however, subvert this right. When this occurs, proper medico-legal investigations are critical irrespective of the nature of death. Unfortunately, the very context of custody raises serious concerns over the effectiveness and fairness of medico-legal examinations. The aim of this manuscript is to identify and discuss the practical and ethical difficulties encountered in the medico-legal investigation following deaths in custody. Data for this manuscript come from a larger project on Death in Custody that examined the causes of deaths in custody and the conditions under which these deaths should be investigated and prevented. A total of 33 stakeholders from forensic medicine, law, prison administration or national human rights administration were interviewed. Data obtained were analyzed qualitatively. Forensic experts are an essential part of the criminal justice process as they offer evidence for subsequent indictment and eventual punishment of perpetrators. Their independence when investigating a death in custody was deemed critical and lack thereof, problematic. When experts were not independent, concerns arose in relation to conflicts of interest, biased perspectives, and low-quality forensic reports. The solutions to ensure independent forensic investigations of deaths in custody must be structural and simple: setting binding standards of practice rather than detailed procedures and relying on preexisting national practices as opposed to encouraging new practices that are unattainable for countries with limited resources.

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Problem/Condition: An estimated 50,000 persons die annually in the United States as a result of violence-related injuries. This report summarizes data from CDC's National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) regarding violent deaths from 16 states for 2007. Results are reported by sex, age group, race/ethnicity, marital status, location of injury, method of injury, circumstances of injury, and other selected characteristics. Reporting Period Covered: 2007. Description of System: NVDRS collects data regarding violent deaths obtained from death certificates, coroner/medical examiner reports, and law enforcement reports. NVDRS began operation in 2003 with seven states (Alaska, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, and Virginia) participating; six states (Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin) joined in 2004, four (California, Kentucky, New Mexico, and Utah) in 2005, and two states (Ohio and Michigan) were funded to begin data collection in 2010, totaling 19 states. This report includes data from 16 states that collected statewide data in 2007. California data are not included in this report because NVDRS data are collected only in a limited number of California cities and counties rather than statewide. Ohio and Michigan are excluded because they did not begin data collection until 2010. Results: For 2007, a total of 15,882 fatal incidents involving 16,319 deaths occurred in the 16 NVDRS states included in this report. The majority (56.6%) of deaths was suicides, followed by homicides and deaths involving legal intervention (i.e., deaths caused by police and other persons with legal authority to use deadly force, excluding legal executions) (28.0%), deaths of undetermined intent (14.7%), and unintentional firearm deaths (0.7%). Suicides occurred at higher rates among males, American Indians/Alaska Natives, non-Hispanic whites, and persons aged 45-54 years. Suicides occurred most often in a house or apartment and involved the use of firearms. Suicides were precipitated primarily by mental-health, intimate-partner, or physical-health problems, or by a crisis during the preceding 2 weeks. Homicides occurred at higher rates among males and persons aged 20-24 years; rates were highest among non-Hispanic black males. The majority of homicides involved the use of a firearm and occurred in a house or apartment or on a street/highway. Homicides were precipitated primarily by arguments and interpersonal conflicts or in conjunction with another crime. Other manners of death and special situations or populations also are highlighted in this report. This report provides a detailed summary of data from NVDRS for 2007. The results indicate that violent deaths resulting from self-inflicted or interpersonal violence disproportionately affected adults aged <55 years, males, and certain minority populations. For homicides and suicides, relationship problems, interpersonal conflicts, mental-health problems, and recent crises were among the primary precipitating factors. Because additional information might be reported subsequently as participating states update their findings, the data provided in this report are preliminary. For the occurrence of violent deaths in the United States to be better understood and ultimately prevented, accurate, timely, and comprehensive surveillance data are necessary. NVDRS data can be used to monitor the occurrence of violence-related fatal injuries and assist public health authorities in the development, implementation, and evaluation of programs and policies to reduce and prevent violent deaths at the national, state, and local levels. The continued development and expansion of NVDRS is essential to CDC's efforts to reduce the personal, familial, and societal costs of violence. Further efforts are needed to increase the number of states participating in NVDRS, with an ultimate goal of full national representation. this gap in national surveillance; it is the first system to provide detailed information on circumstances precipitating violent deaths, the first to link multiple source documents to enable researchers to understand each death more completely, and the first to link multiple deaths that are related to one another (e.g., multiple homicides, suicide pacts, and cases of homicide followed by the suicide of the suspected perpetrator).

American Journal of Public Health, 2008

Objectives. We compared mortality of ex-prisoners and other state residents to identify unmet health care needs among former prisoners. Methods. We linked North Carolina prison records with state death records for 1980 to 2005 to estimate the number of overall and cause-specific deaths among male ex-prisoners aged 20 to 69 years and used standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) to compare these observed deaths with the number of expected deaths had they experienced the same age-, race-, and cause-specific death rates as other state residents. Results. All-cause mortality among White (SMR = 2.08; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.04, 2.13) and Black (SMR = 1.03; 95% CI = 1.01, 1.05) ex-prisoners was greater than for other male NC residents. Ex-prisoners&#39; deaths from homicide, accidents, substance use, HIV, liver disease, and liver cancer were greater than the expected number of deaths estimated using death rates among other NC residents. Deaths from cardiovascular disease, lung cancer...

The western journal of emergency medicine, 2009

Sudden, unexpected arrest-related death (ARD) has been associated with drug abuse, extreme delirium or certain police practices. There is insufficient surveillance and causation data available. We report 12 months of surveillance data using a novel data collection methodology. We used an open-source, prospective method to collect 12 consecutive months of data, including demographics, behavior, illicit substance use, control methods used, and time of collapse after law enforcement contact. Descriptive analysis and chi-square testing were applied. There were 162 ARD events reported that met inclusion criteria. The majority were male with mean age 36 years, and involved bizarre, agitated behavior and reports of drug abuse just prior to death. Law enforcement control techniques included none (14%); empty-hand techniques (69%); intermediate weapons such as TASER((R)) device, impact weapon or chemical irritant spray (52%); and deadly force (12%). Time from contact to subject collapse incl...