Jail death reporting inconsistencies routinely include missing data, incomplete records, and a lack of standardized state and local reporting systems, leading to undercounted deaths at the federal, state, and local level despite laws like the Death in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA). Key issues include missing information on cause of death, law enforcement agency, and demographic details, as well as states failing to report a significant number of deaths to federal agencies. This creates an inaccurate and incomplete picture of the total number of in-custody deaths in the United States.

Federal databases frequently lack required information, such as the law enforcement agency responsible or the cause of death. For example, a review found that two-thirds of records from Harris County, Texas, only contained “pending autopsy results”. Additionally, many records do not meet federal criteria for a complete death record, with some analysis finding that over three-quarters of a sample did not meet the criteria.

Issues also reside with the data collection process. There is no single, unified system for data collection across states, leading to wildly inconsistent methods for reporting deaths. States use different processes, from web portals to Excel spreadsheets or simple phone calls, which contributes to the overall data quality issues.  The resulting data is often not transparent or timely, and it is inaccurate. The lack of standardization and inconsistent reporting leads to an unreliable picture of the actual number of deaths occurring in custody. 

States often fail to report all deaths to the federal government. One analysis identified around 1,000 deaths in one year that were not reported in response to DCRA. Some states have reported almost zero deaths in their jails and prisons. The oversight body responsible, the United States Department of Justice, has failed to properly enforce the DCRA, which requires states receiving federal funding to report these deaths to be eligible for grants. States that don’t comply face a punishment of up to a 10% reduction to their awards under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, the primary source of federal funding to state and local jurisdictions.

The Justice Department must report to Congress on how the DCRA data is used to establish policies and practices that prevent in-custody deaths.

But no report has been created, contrary to the federal law.

This adds up to real-world consequences.

Citing data from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the report says the federal government likely undercounted deaths in custody in 2021 alone by nearly 1,000 compared with other public data sources.

“People are dying during incarceration, detention, and in police custody every day, yet we have no idea who they are, how they die, or how best to prevent future deaths,” Bree Spencer, interim senior program director for justice reform at The Leadership Conference Education Fund, said in a statement. “Congress passed the Death in Custody Reporting Act to solve this problem and reduce preventable deaths, but agencies are failing to implement it.”

You can read more about the how failure to report jail deaths in one jurisdiction creates more questions, less answers, and inevitably, more death in “Why No One Knows How Many People Die in Mississippi’s Local Jails” from the Marshall Project. The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.