DOJ Admits It Has No Idea How Many People Die in Law Enforcement Custody
Thousands of deaths in jails, prisons, and police custody have gone uncounted in recent years. Now the DOJ is calling for changes to federal law.
Bureau of Justice Statistics
Ethan Corey
When It Comes to Reporting Deaths of Incarcerated People, Most States Break the Law
Our team at the University of North Carolina analyzed death-in-custody reporting policies at every state and federal carceral entity. Data collection is a mess—and many states don’t follow the law at all.
Trump Turned the Justice System Into a Black Box. Biden Could Fix It
The Bureau of Justice Statistics has suffered from years of poor funding and political interference by the Trump administration. Fixing it could be one of the most important tasks on Biden’s criminal justice reform agenda.
How the Federal Government Lost Track of Deaths in Custody
The Department of Justice is leaving researchers, policymakers, and advocates in the dark about deaths in police custody, prisons, and jails.
Alabama’s Prisons Are the Most Crowded—If You Look at the Right Data
The Bureau of Justice Statistics relies in part on states to self-report prison capacity numbers, which can result in a misleading snapshot of overcrowding in the U.S.