How Journalists Can Examine Deaths in Prisons and Jails

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Deaths that happen both when an individual is within the custody of regulation enforcement or housed in a correctional facility are largely underreported. That’s as a result of reporting necessities are usually not enforced federally or in most states. With out correct information, circumstances resulting in unnatural deaths can proceed unchecked, together with situations of medical negligence and extreme use-of-force. Many researchers, lawmakers and advocates view this challenge as a public well being emergency.

The Marshall Undertaking has a crew of reporters who’ve lined deaths in custody, together with workers writers Brittany Hailer and Mark Puente on our Cleveland information crew and our senior information reporter Anna Flagg. Their experience has knowledgeable this reporting toolkit. Right here is steering and context based mostly on their years of expertise shedding mild on this darkish nook of our legal justice system.

Together with utilizing the following pointers, you’ll be able to schedule a session to debate particular reporting hurdles in your jurisdiction or get basic recommendation on navigating the legal justice beat. Anticipate that an investigation of this nature may take you or your newsroom months relatively than weeks.

Particular data you’ll be able to request

When an individual dies in custody, getting data isn’t at all times straightforward. However there are lots of paperwork you’ll be able to request from businesses inside and outdoors of the system. Under is an inventory of the assorted “receipts” that may assist you confirm the tough sequence of occasions that in the end led to a demise behind bars.

What to do for those who don’t have the identify of the deceased

First: With out a identify you’ll be able to nonetheless attain out to the county medical expert, forensic pathologist or coroner to clarify what you are attempting to seek out.

Subsequent: Share any particulars you’ve gotten, such because the age of the deceased or the date and site of their demise.

Lastly: Ask for any demise data that match these circumstances. In most states, their identify, demise date, age at time of demise, explanation for demise and method of demise ought to be public info.

Get the post-mortem and extra out of your medical expert or coroner

First: Test this database maintained by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to see if post-mortem or coroners’ studies can be found in your state.

Subsequent: Request the post-mortem or coroner’s report from the state or county medical expert’s workplace, if an post-mortem was carried out.

At all times: Ask for supplemental notes to the post-mortem past the toxicology report, which can be referred to as coroner’s notes, medical expert’s notes, or investigator’s notes. These notes are actually the place you’re going to get the data that’s most pertinent to your investigation.

Word: The reason of the circumstances surrounding the demise is necessary, however the stage of element will fluctuate from report back to report based mostly on the reviewing pathologist. Some autopsies don’t even let you know that the individual was in jail after they died, whereas different autopsies are extremely detailed and stroll you thru the entire sequence of occasions. With extra thorough accounts, you might be taught particulars equivalent to if the individual was launched again to jail from the hospital or in the event that they later died on the hospital.

Lastly: Ask for supplementary paperwork, photographs, and video, however even when the studies are thought of open data, these things might not be obtainable, particularly if the post-mortem is being utilized by regulation enforcement for an ongoing investigation.

Acquire their reserving data from the native jail

First: After you have a reputation, you’ll be able to go to your native jail, sheriff or county spokesperson and request a bunch of data. You’ll be able to ask for the next paperwork:

• Reserving info, which incorporates reserving or consumption data
• Consumption survey
• Documentation of the private gadgets that they had upon coming into the power

Word: Some state legal guidelines mandate that surveillance and physique cam footage are all public report. If you recognize when somebody was booked, however you don’t know after they died, you’ll be able to ask for footage of their reserving to assist paint an image of how effectively or unwell the individual was as they entered the power. Needless to say plenty of states don’t provide entry to this footage and a few states make it costly to accumulate.

Get the arrest report out of your native police division

First: Request the arrest report for the deceased individual from the police division, sheriff’s workplace, clerk of courts or Justice of the Peace. This may assist you decide in the event that they have been harmed or injured earlier than they entered the jail and the place they have been earlier than they entered the jail. For instance, somebody may undergo an harm because of extreme use-of-force throughout their arrest after which die in jail quickly after from a ruptured spleen.

Word: Particulars concerning the location and circumstance of the arrest can assist inform what their bodily and psychological state would have been upon coming into the jail. For instance, you might wish to know if somebody was beforehand within the hospital for a medical emergency earlier than being arrested.

Data from contained in the jail

First: A number of data are produced after somebody is booked into jail. You’ll be able to request:

• Housing data, together with transfers or actions by the jail
• Grievances they’ve filed, equivalent to in the event that they complained of any medical points
• Disciplinary data or unfavorable contacts with workers, which can present you any self-discipline that was administered, together with if the individual was put in solitary confinement for any purpose or if that they had a suspension of visits
• Classification notes, which can present how the jail has categorized the incarcerated individual associated to their cost and the place they’re housed
• Any mail or books they obtained
• Commissary data, equivalent to receipts of things they’ve bought
• Data of their leisure time
• Discharge and launch data

At all times: Ask for the jail’s insurance policies and procedures for when a demise happens in your native jail. When there’s a demise in jail, normal working procedures fluctuate by facility. It’s possible you’ll wish to ask:

• What’s the coverage for notifying the household?
• What are the usual working procedures for notifying the state or some other oversight company?

Working with the household will open extra doorways

In case you are in contact with cooperative members of the family, they will request medical data for his or her cherished one, though many jails will deny these requests.

First: Ask the household to request Emergency Medical Service (EMS) data if the individual died at a hospital. They’ll additionally ask the hospital for data.

Word: The EMTs who reply to deaths on the jail ask questions and take notes to allow them to replace the physician. Their notes can provide a story sense of what occurred from the time the EMT entered the jail and eliminated the physique, although there will probably be a niche in info relating to what occurred between the emergency and the demise.

Does your jail have an oversight entity?

It’s necessary to find out how your jail works. Who oversees the jail? Does your state have an oversight company for the jail? What sorts of data do they maintain? What sorts of investigations do they handle?

First: Test this graphic from the Nationwide Useful resource Middle for Correctional Oversight to see in case your state has exterior oversight businesses for his or her prisons. The oversight of jails and prisons just isn’t uniform nationwide, and whereas inside oversight businesses are widespread, many states don’t but have exterior oversight by events outdoors of their correctional company.

Subsequent: In case your state has an oversight company, you’ll be able to request all essential incidents to your county in a given yr. States have completely different names for these data. For instance, Ohio makes use of the time period “essential incidents” whereas Pennsylvania makes use of the time period “extraordinary prevalence studies.” You need to get a dataset monitoring occasions like suicides, fires, assaults and deaths. The state could also be sooner at offering data than the county, and state paperwork can assist you fact-check what the county is telling you.

Word: In case you determine fascinating information factors, you’ll be able to ask for supporting paperwork to assist make clear what the investigation entailed, any conclusions that have been drawn, if there was a corrective motion plan and different particulars.

Lastly: We think about there are lots of phrases throughout completely different states for most of these incident studies. In case your state makes use of a special time period, please tell us.

Widespread obstacles you might encounter

Most frequently, denials for data requests will reference HIPAA or the paperwork will probably be so redacted that they’re primarily ineffective. Small errors, equivalent to incorrect dates or misspellings, can gradual issues down or be grounds for denial. So, triple-check your request earlier than submitting.

Word: Think about broadening your data request to make it unclear precisely what incident or challenge you’re wanting into. For instance, if you recognize there was one demise in January 2024, you would ask for data associated to all deaths from January 2021 by January 2025. Be mindful, nonetheless, that in case your request is simply too broad, an company can deny it for being overly burdensome.

At all times: Do not forget that public officers can say no matter they need and it’s essential to:

• Get documentation to substantiate the validity of what you’re being instructed
• Assume there will probably be delays with data requests, which would require you to observe up usually, and brainstorm artistic avenues to entry the data you want
• Be looking out for false or incorrect data by double-checking what you’re listening to or studying in opposition to different info sources

For extra details about widespread roadblocks, try this behind-the-scenes have a look at a Marshall Undertaking investigation of the Cuyahoga County Jail from workers writers Brittany Hailer and Mark Puente.

Request your state’s Dying in Custody Reporting Act information yearly

First: Each state has a reporting company for the Dying in Custody Reporting Act, or DCRA. These businesses are required to ship quarterly studies to the federal authorities as a way to adhere to DCRA. You will discover your state’s company right here.

At all times: Request info out of your state’s reporting company firstly of the brand new yr. You’ll be able to request these studies for the earlier yr, which give a way of how many individuals died in custody within the state throughout that time-frame.

Word: The report gained’t present an correct quantity since many sheriffs and wardens don’t report each demise of their facility; nonetheless, the studies can not less than make you conscious of deaths that your native jail didn’t report back to the press.

What to find out about DCRA

When investigating deaths in native jails and prisons, you’ll encounter the Dying in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA). Enacted in 2000, the DCRA mandates that the federal authorities gather information from native jurisdictions on deaths in prisons and jails. This contains arrest-related deaths equivalent to police shootings and use-of-force incidents, in addition to different deaths that happen throughout arrest.

It’s necessary to know that the Division of Justice is legally obligated to gather this info. If an area jurisdiction claims they don’t seem to be required to report deaths of their jail or jail, that assertion is fake; nonetheless, as a result of the Division of Justice can not compel businesses to report information or report it accurately, this information nonetheless might not be obtainable or might not be correct.

To be taught extra about DCRA obtain our tipsheet.

The Alabama Answer: Highlight on jail demise information

The humanitarian disaster in Alabama’s prisons is the main focus of a brand new documentary, “The Alabama Answer” from co-directors Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman. The crew chronicled the deteriorating circumstances behind bars for the reason that U.S. Justice Division discovered widespread violence, neglect and sexual abuse within the state’s jail system in 2020. Deaths have greater than doubled since 2019, and deadly drug overdoses have elevated greater than tenfold, the filmmakers discovered. The documentary gives a uncommon look into these establishments, that are notoriously closed off to the general public, by that includes cellphone footage shot by a gaggle of incarcerated males.

To grasp the magnitude of the disaster, the filmmaking crew labored to piece collectively public data from a number of sources and create a searchable database of the practically 1,400 deaths of incarcerated folks in Alabama between 2019 and 2024. The database contains the trigger and method of demise, together with demographic information about the one that died. The place obtainable, the filmmakers additionally cross-referenced post-mortem studies and different related info from sources, equivalent to incarcerated folks, their members of the family, jail officers and different corrections workers members.

The database is supposed to be a jumping-off level for journalists, members of the family and different stakeholders throughout Alabama who wish to make clear the lethal developments inside correctional amenities. It may be filtered by classes like explanation for demise, establishment, yr of demise, race and jail to assist reveal developments inside this disaster. It’s additionally a useful instance for reporters in different states of learn how to get artistic with data requests to determine what number of deaths occurred of their state’s prisons.

Reporters and impartial content material creators overlaying this challenge are welcome to make use of any of the photographs in this folder to your associated protection, courtesy of the filmmakers. Be sure that to make use of the captions and crediting language supplied within the folder. It’s not permitted to feed these photographs to AI picture turbines or in any other case manipulate these photographs, excluding minimal cropping.

In case you are fascinated about exposing the scope of this public well being disaster in your state and wish to focus on your reporting with a Marshall Undertaking workers member, you’ll be able to request a session right here.

As you dig into the information for Alabama, listed here are key reporting suggestions from the filmmakers:

Dig for info past official sources

With a purpose to get a extra full depend of deaths behind bars, the documentary crew needed to forged a large web, gathering information from a number of sources. Together with requesting data from the Alabama Division of Corrections for the power, date, and identify of every in-custody demise, they stuffed in gaps relating to the trigger and method of demise by reviewing studies from numerous businesses, together with the Alabama Division of Financial and Group Affairs and the Alabama Division of Forensic Sciences, amongst others. Cross-referencing information sources additionally helped confirm conflicting info. Learn extra about their methodology right here.

Evaluate “professional se” litigation

Incarcerated folks can legally characterize themselves and file what is called “professional se” litigation to doc civil rights points. Professional se litigation can provide a real-time report of what was occurring behind bars and a blueprint for what sources to contact, for the reason that deceased litigant might have talked about cellmates, pals, or corrections staff within the documentation. These lawsuits not often end in authorized motion as a result of the percentages are stacked in opposition to incarcerated folks, however even when their grievances are dismissed, you should still have the ability to get hold of a report of the preliminary submitting. In Alabama, professional se litigation is filed in federal courtroom, so the filmmakers accessed these data by PACER. It’s additionally necessary to request the individual’s institutional recordsdata, which can embrace incident studies about interactions with corrections officers, together with consumption and well being kinds, and different breadcrumbs. Monitoring down all this info may be overwhelming, particularly for grieving members of the family, which is why we created this information on what inquiries to ask and paperwork to acquire when a member of the family dies behind bars.

Ask for receipts

When somebody dies in jail, corrections officers might launch a press assertion with obscure or incorrect particulars to native media. It will be important to not rely solely on particulars reported by the corrections division. As an alternative, you need to use the general public info as a place to begin to ask follow-up questions that require jail officers to indicate the proof behind their assumptions, equivalent to: How are you aware that? Why do you suppose that? What doc or report reveals that? In Alabama, the general public has a proper to request an incarcerated individual’s institutional recordsdata, autopsies and hospital data in some instances.

Remind audiences of important context

When highlighting systemic dysfunction, let your viewers know what insurance policies contributed to the issues you are overlaying. State corrections programs are particularly formed by insurance policies made by lawmakers on the state stage. For instance, Alabama’s Recurring Felony Offender Act, one of many harshest legal guidelines of its type nationally, has led to lots of of incarcerated folks serving life sentences with out parole.

Acknowledgements: Because of the crew behind “The Alabama Answer”: co-directors Charlotte Kaufman and Andrew Jarecki, co-producer Beth Shelburne, and affiliate producers Chris Izor and Gabe Murray for sharing their reporting suggestions. Jarecki is a donor to and board member of The Marshall Undertaking.

Use this illustration

You’re welcome to republish the supplied illustration inside any tales derived from the supplies on this toolkit, together with any associated social media and e-newsletter promotion of these tales. Juan Bernabeu should be credited in all makes use of. The illustration shouldn’t be printed in unrelated tales. The illustrations shouldn’t be cropped or altered in any means. Please e-mail us with any questions and be taught extra concerning the artist right here.

Watch our webinar

On March 12, 2025, The Marshall Undertaking hosted a press briefing on deaths behind bars. The occasion introduced collectively a number of nationwide specialists to debate insights from their information assortment and tutorial analysis on this challenge, which is a public well being emergency. This dialog is on-the-record, and we encourage native journalists to make use of quotes and sound bites for his or her reporting on this matter, which is why we’re offering the total transcript right here.

Watch the recorded webinar.

Our panelists included: Andrea Armstrong, Dr. Norman C. Francis Distinguished Professor of Legislation, Loyola College New Orleans; Terence Keel, Professor of Human Biology and Society, College of California Los Angeles; and Orion Taylor, Lead Information Scientist on the Public Security Lab (NYU & Social Science Analysis Council).

Marshall Undertaking Workers Author Brittany Hailer and Senior Information Reporter Anna Flagg moderated the occasion. Here’s a record of the hyperlinks to sources we shared within the chat through the occasion.

Get recommendation from our reporters

There are a couple of extra methods you might wish to deploy. To be taught extra, schedule a session by this type so we will diagnose your state of affairs and provide tailor-made steering on methods to proceed.

Knowledgeable sources

The next specialists have supplied essential insights for information protection on deaths in custody and facility oversight. We’ve indicated their areas of experience beneath.

• Andrea Armstrong, Loyola College New Orleans, Dr. Norman C. Francis Distinguished Professor of Legislation: Armstrong is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow and incarceration regulation scholar who runs the Incarceration Transparency database. Armstrong works with regulation college students to file data requests and doc jail and jail deaths in Louisiana and South Carolina.
• Jay D. Aronson, Middle for Human Rights Science at Carnegie Mellon College, founder and director: Aronson is a professor of science, expertise and society at Carnegie Mellon and co-author of Dying in Custody: How America Ignores the Reality and What We Can Do about It.
• Michele Deitch, The College of Texas at Austin College of Legislation, distinguished senior lecturer: Deitch directs the Jail and Jail Innovation Lab on the College of Texas and runs the Nationwide Useful resource Middle for Correctional Oversight.
• Terence Keel, College of California, Los Angeles Lab for BioCritical Research, founding director: Keel is a UCLA professor of human biology and society, and African American Research. He runs the In-Custody Dying Undertaking, which produces studies on individuals who misplaced their lives whereas in state custody. This undertaking is the idea for Keel’s forthcoming ebook The Coroner’s Silence: Dying Data and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence (Beacon Press, 2025).
• Dr. Roger A. Mitchell, Jr., Howard College Faculty of Medication, professor and chair of pathology: Mitchell is board licensed in anatomic and forensic pathology, a previous chief medical expert for Washington, D.C., and co-author of Dying in Custody: How America Ignores the Reality and What We Can Do about It.
• Orion Taylor, Public Security Lab, New York College, lead information scientist: Taylor oversees the Jail Information Initiative, which scrapes “day by day county jail rosters in over 1,300 counties.” Try their dashboard to see in case your jail is included.
• Dr. Homer Venters, Group Oriented Correctional Well being Companies, senior well being and justice fellow: Venters is the creator of Life and Dying in Rikers Island, which pulls on his earlier expertise because the chief medical officer for the New York Metropolis jail system.

Type and requirements

Listed below are two thorny points that would come up through the reporting course of and steering on learn how to resolve them. For a extra basic overview of our types and requirements, please evaluation our sources web page.

Medical histories

When a supply’s medical historical past is related to the story, you’ll want to substantiate or confirm any info included within the story. For tales that embrace necessary medical particulars a couple of deceased individual that you just obtained from a member of the family, ensure that the member of the family is permitted to talk on their cherished one’s behalf. You’ll nonetheless have to confirm their info with a secondary supply.

Individuals-first language

You’ll discover all through this toolkit that the phrases “inmates,” “prisoners,” “convicts” and “felons” are usually not used to explain the individuals who have died whereas in custody.

As an alternative, we use “people-first” language — equivalent to “incarcerated folks,” “folks behind bars,” “folks convicted of felonies” or “previously incarcerated folks.” These phrases keep away from stigmatizing euphemisms and emphasize accuracy and readability.

We make an exception for “prisoner” or “prisoners” in headlines, for brevity’s sake, and since it’s much less fraught with stigma.

Share your work

Thanks for utilizing this toolkit to create your personal native legal justice reporting! Please assist us observe your work and probably share it in our e-newsletter by emailing us a hyperlink to your reporting.