How Journalists Can Investigate Deaths in Prisons and Jails

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Deaths that happen both when an individual is within the custody of legislation enforcement or housed in a correctional facility are largely underreported. That’s as a result of reporting necessities usually are not enforced federally or in most states. With out correct knowledge, 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 situation as a public well being emergency.

The Marshall Mission has a group of reporters who’ve coated deaths in custody, together with workers writers Brittany Hailer and Mark Puente on our Cleveland information group and our senior knowledge reporter Anna Flagg. Their experience has knowledgeable this reporting toolkit. Right here is steerage 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 may schedule a session to debate particular reporting hurdles in your jurisdiction or get common recommendation on navigating the legal justice beat. Anticipate that an investigation of this nature might take you or your newsroom months quite than weeks.

Particular information you may request

When an individual dies in custody, getting information isn’t at all times straightforward. However there are various paperwork you may request from companies inside and outdoors of the system. Beneath is a listing of the assorted “receipts” that may make it easier to confirm the tough sequence of occasions that in the end led to a demise behind bars.

What to do in case you don’t have the title of the deceased

First: With out a title you may nonetheless attain out to the county health worker, forensic pathologist or coroner to elucidate what you are attempting to seek out.

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

Lastly: Ask for any demise information that match these circumstances. In most states, their title, 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 health worker or coroner

First: Verify 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 health worker’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 known as coroner’s notes, health worker’s notes, or investigator’s notes. These notes are actually the place you’re going to get the knowledge that’s most pertinent to your investigation.

Notice: The reason of the circumstances surrounding the demise is essential, however the stage of element will fluctuate from report back to report based mostly on the reviewing pathologist. Some autopsies don’t even inform you 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, chances are you’ll study particulars reminiscent of 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, images, and video, however even when the studies are thought-about open information, these things might not be out there, particularly if the post-mortem is being utilized by legislation enforcement for an ongoing investigation.

Gather their reserving information from the native jail

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

Reserving info, which incorporates reserving or consumption information
Consumption survey
Documentation of the private gadgets they’d upon coming into the power

Notice: Some state legal guidelines mandate that surveillance and physique cam footage are all public document. If you realize when somebody was booked, however you don’t know after they died, you may ask for footage of their reserving to assist paint an image of how effectively or unwell the individual was as they entered the power. Remember that numerous 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 document for the deceased individual from the police division, sheriff’s workplace, clerk of courts or Justice of the Peace. This can make it easier to 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 might undergo an damage as a result of extreme use-of-force throughout their arrest after which die in jail quickly after from a ruptured spleen.

Notice: Particulars concerning the location and circumstance of the arrest may also help inform what their bodily and psychological state would have been upon coming into the jail. For instance, chances are you’ll 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 information are produced after somebody is booked into jail. You’ll be able to request:

Housing information, together with transfers or actions by means of the jail
Grievances they’ve filed, reminiscent of in the event that they complained of any medical points
Disciplinary information or unfavourable contacts with workers, which is able to present you any self-discipline that was administered, together with if the individual was put in solitary confinement for any motive or if they’d a suspension of visits
Classification notes, which is able to present how the jail has labeled the incarcerated individual associated to their cost and the place they’re housed
Any mail or books they acquired
Commissary information, reminiscent of receipts of things they’ve bought
Data of their leisure time
Discharge and launch information

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, customary working procedures fluctuate by facility. You could 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

If you’re in contact with cooperative relations, they’ll request medical information for his or her cherished one, though many jails will deny these requests.

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

Notice: 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 can be a spot in info concerning what occurred between the emergency and the demise.

Does your jail have an oversight entity?

It’s essential to learn the way your jail works. Who oversees the jail? Does your state have an oversight company for the jail? What sorts of information do they hold? What sorts of investigations do they handle?

First: Verify this graphic from the Nationwide Useful resource Heart for Correctional Oversight to see in case your state has exterior oversight companies for his or her prisons. The oversight of jails and prisons will not be uniform nationwide, and whereas inner oversight companies are widespread, many states don’t but have exterior oversight by events exterior of their correctional company.

Subsequent: In case your state has an oversight company, you may request all important incidents on your county in a given 12 months. States have completely different names for these information. For instance, Ohio makes use of the time period “important incidents” whereas Pennsylvania makes use of the time period “extraordinary prevalence studies.” You must get a dataset monitoring occasions like suicides, fires, assaults and deaths. The state could also be quicker at offering information than the county, and state paperwork may also help you fact-check what the county is telling you.

Notice: In the event you establish attention-grabbing knowledge factors, you may 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 various phrases throughout completely different states for all these incident studies. In case your state makes use of a unique time period, please tell us.

Frequent obstacles chances are you’ll encounter

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

Notice: Contemplate broadening your information request to make it unclear precisely what incident or situation you’re wanting into. For instance, if you realize there was one demise in January 2024, you could possibly ask for information associated to all deaths from January 2021 by means of January 2025. Have in mind, nevertheless, that in case your request is simply too broad, an company can deny it for being overly burdensome.

At all times: Keep in mind that public officers can say no matter they need and it’s important to:

Get documentation to verify the validity of what you’re being instructed
Assume there can be delays with information requests, which would require you to comply with up usually, and brainstorm inventive avenues to entry the knowledge you want
Be looking out for false or incorrect information 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 take a look at a Marshall Mission investigation of the Cuyahoga County Jail from workers writers Brittany Hailer and Mark Puente.

Request your state’s Loss of life in Custody Reporting Act knowledge yearly

First: Each state has a reporting company for the Loss of life in Custody Reporting Act, or DCRA. These companies are required to ship quarterly studies to the federal authorities with a purpose to adhere to DCRA. You could find your state’s company right here.

At all times: Request info out of your state’s reporting company at first of the brand new 12 months. You’ll be able to request these studies for the earlier 12 months, which give a way of how many individuals died in custody within the state throughout that time-frame.

Notice: The report gained’t present an correct quantity since many sheriffs and wardens don’t report each demise of their facility; nevertheless, the studies can at the very least make you conscious of deaths that your native jail didn’t report back to the press.

What to learn about DCRA

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

It’s essential to know that the Division of Justice is legally obligated to gather this info. If an area jurisdiction claims they aren’t required to report deaths of their jail or jail, that assertion is fake; nevertheless, as a result of the Division of Justice can not compel companies to report knowledge or report it appropriately, this knowledge nonetheless might not be out there or might not be correct.

To study extra about DCRA obtain our tipsheet.

Use this illustration

You’re welcome to republish the offered illustration inside any tales derived from the supplies on this toolkit, together with any associated social media and publication promotion of these tales. Juan Bernabeu have to 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 approach. Please electronic mail us with any questions and study extra concerning the artist right here.

Juan Bernabeu for The Marshall Mission

Get recommendation from our reporters

There are a couple of extra methods chances are you’ll wish to deploy. To study extra, schedule a session by means of this manner so we are able to diagnose your scenario and provide tailor-made steerage on methods to proceed.

Skilled sources

The next consultants have offered important insights for information protection on deaths in custody and facility oversight. We’ve indicated their areas of experience under.

Andrea Armstrong, Loyola College New Orleans, Dr. Norman C. Francis Distinguished Professor of Regulation: Armstrong is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow and incarceration legislation scholar who runs the Incarceration Transparency database. Armstrong works with legislation college students to file information requests and doc jail and jail deaths in Louisiana and South Carolina.

Jay D. Aronson, Heart 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 Loss of life in Custody: How America Ignores the Reality and What We Can Do about It.

Michele Deitch, The College of Texas at Austin Faculty of Regulation, distinguished senior lecturer: Deitch directs the Jail and Jail Innovation Lab on the College of Texas and runs the Nationwide Useful resource Heart 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 Loss of life Mission, which produces studies on individuals who misplaced their lives whereas in state custody. This challenge is the premise for Keel’s forthcoming ebook The Coroner’s Silence: Loss of life Data and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence (Beacon Press, 2025).

Dr. Roger A. Mitchell, Jr., Howard College School of Drugs, professor and chair of pathology: Mitchell is board licensed in anatomic and forensic pathology, a previous chief health worker for Washington, D.C., and co-author of Loss of life in Custody: How America Ignores the Reality and What We Can Do about It.

Orion Taylor, Public Security Lab, New York College, lead knowledge scientist: Taylor oversees the Jail Knowledge Initiative, which scrapes “each 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 Loss of life 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 here are two thorny points that would come up through the reporting course of and steerage on how one can resolve them. For a extra common overview of our kinds and requirements, please evaluation our assets web page.

Medical histories

When a supply’s medical historical past is related to the story, you’ll want to verify or confirm any info included within the story. For tales that embody essential medical particulars a few deceased individual that you just obtained from a member of the family, be certain the member of the family is permitted to talk on their cherished one’s behalf. You’ll nonetheless must confirm their info with a secondary supply.

Folks-first language

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

As an alternative, we use “people-first” language — reminiscent of “incarcerated individuals,” “individuals behind bars,” “individuals convicted of felonies” or “previously incarcerated individuals.” 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 individual native legal justice reporting! Please assist us observe your work and doubtlessly share it in our publication by emailing us a hyperlink to your reporting.