U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics ------------------------------------------------------ This file is text only without graphics and many of the tables. A Zip archive of the tables in this report inspreadsheet format (.csv) and the full report including tables and graphics in .pdf format are available on BJS website at http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5865 This reports is one in series. More recent editions may be available. To view a list of all reports in the series go to http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbse&sid=76 ------------------------------------------------------ Statistical Tables Mortality in Local Jails, 2000-2014- Statistical Tables Margaret E. Noonan, BJS Statistician In 2014, there were 1,053 deaths in local jails, an 8% increase from 2013. Respiratory deaths increased 32%, from 31 deaths in 2013 to 41 in 2014. Suicides, the leading cause of death, increased 13% between 2013 and 2014, from 328 to 372. Heart disease, the second leading cause of death in local jails, decreased from 260 deaths in 2013 to 239 in 2014. In 2014, the majority (80%) of jails reported no deaths. Jails reporting zero deaths were holding 142 inmates on an average day. In 2014, jails reporting at least one death held an average of 363 inmates, and jails reporting two or more deaths held an average of 1,683 inmates. The jail mortality rates increased 3% to 140 deaths per 100,000 in 2014, up from 136 deaths per 100,000 local jail inmates in 2013 (figure 1). The drug-alcohol intoxication mortality rate increased to 12 deaths per 100,000 local jail inmates in 2014, up from 10 per 100,000 local jail inmates in 2013. The suicide rate increased 8% between 2013 and 2014 to 50 suicides per 100,000 local jail inmates. Males accounted for the majority (900 deaths) of jail inmate deaths in 2014, but the number of female deaths (152) increased 22% between 2013 and 2014. Between 2000 and 2014, jail authorities reported a total of 14,786 inmate deaths in local jails. Suicides accounted for 31% of jail inmate deaths during that period. Jail inmates served a median of 19 days prior to death between 2000 and 2014. During the same period, a third (35%) of inmates were being held for a violent offense prior to death and about a quarter (24%) were being held for a public order offense. About half (49%) of inmates who died in a jail died in a medical facility between 2000 and 2014. Data in this report were developed from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP), an annual data collection of inmate deaths in local jails and state prisons. The DCRP is the only national statistical collection that obtains comprehensive data about deaths in adult correctional facilities. BJS initiated the DCRP data collection for local jails in 2000. This report details reported deaths that occurred in local jails between 2000 and 2014. It provides information about the causes and circumstances of local jail inmate deaths including selected decedent and event characteristics and jail mortality rates by state. Data on mortality in state and federal prisons can be found in Mortality in State Prisons, 2001-2014 - Statistical Tables (NCJ 250150, BJS web, December 2016). ************************************************************* ********************************************** 2015 preliminary count of jail inmate deaths ************************************************* As of September 6, 2016, a total of 2,891 jails submitted 1,069 local jail inmate death records to the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program. This is a 97% response rate. BJS will publish full detail on the 2015 mortality of local jail inmates in 2017. ***************************************************************** ************* Highlights ************* Cause of death *************** * Heart disease was the second-leading cause of death in local jails, accounting for 23% of deaths between 2000 and 2014 (table 1). * Deaths due to drug-alcohol intoxication increased from 72 in 2013 to 90 deaths in 2014 (table 2). * Heart disease deaths declined from 27% of all deaths in 2013 to 23% in 2014 (table 3). * The suicide rate in local jails in 2014 was 50 per 100,000 local jail inmates. This is the highest suicide rate observed in local jails since 2000 (table 4). Decedent characteristics ****************************** * More than a third (425 of 1,053 deaths, or 40%) of inmate deaths occurred within the first 7 days of admission (table 5). * In 2014, more than a third (41%) of local jail inmates who died were being held for a violent offense prior to death (table 6). * The female mortality rate (143 per 100,000 local jail inmates) and the male mortality rate (140 per 100,000 local jail inmates) were about equal in 2014 (table 7). Cause of death and demographics ********************************* * More than a third of inmates who died of homicide (137 of 327) were being held for a violent offense in 2014 (table 8). * Inmates being held for drug (11 per 100,000 local jail inmates) or public order (11 per 100,000 local jail inmates) offenses died from drug-alcohol intoxication at equal rates between 2000 and 2014 (table 9). * Inmates who died of cancer had the longest median time served (136 days) prior to death. Inmates who died from drug-alcohol intoxication served a median of 1 day prior to death (table 10). * Inmates held on a homicide charge served the most number of days (129 days) of all inmates who died in local jails between 2000 and 2014 (table 11). * Between 2000 and 2014, convicted jail inmates served more than 1 month (49 days) prior to death, while unconvicted inmates served less than two weeks (12 days) prior to death (table 12). Facility characteristics *************************** * Almost half (47%) of suicides occurred in general housing within jails between 2000 and 2014 (table 13). * In 2014, 15% of the total jail population was being held for other correctional authorities, such as state prisons, the U.S. Marshal’s Service, and Immigration Services (table 14). * Jails reporting two or more inmate deaths held on average five times as many inmates as jails reporting a single inmate death in 2014 (table 15). * The jail population had an average annual growth of 2% between 2000 and 2014 (table 16). * Alaska was the only state that reported zero deaths in local jails in 2014 (table 17). * Overall mortality rates and mortality rates by state and by cause of death may not be directly compared between states due to differences in age, sex, race or Hispanic origin, and other decedent characteristics (table 18) * 581 of the 2,870 jail jurisdictions that reported data to the DCRP reported at least one death to the DCRP (table 20). * The mortality rates for illness among females were higher than the rates for males from 2005 to 2014 (appendix table 2). * In 2014, non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black jail inmates died from heart disease at nearly equal rates (appendix table 3). * From 2009 to 2014, the suicide rate increased 28% from 35 per 100,000 local jail inmates to 45 per 100,000 local jail inmates (appendix table 4). ************************************************************** **************** List of tables **************** TABLE 1 Number of local jail inmate deaths, by cause of death, 2000–2014 TABLE 2 Number of local jail inmate deaths, by cause of death, 2000 and 2005–2014 TABLE 3 Percent of local jail inmate deaths, by cause of death, 2000 and 2005–2014 TABLE 4 Mortality rate per 100,000 local jail inmates, by cause of death, 2000 and 2005–2014 TABLE 5 Number of local jail inmate deaths, by selected decedent characteristics, 2000 and 2005–2014 TABLE 6 Percent of local jail inmate deaths, by selected decedent characteristics, 2000 and 2005–2014 TABLE 7 Mortality rate per 100,000 local jail inmates, by selected decedent characteristics, 2000 and 2005–2014 TABLE 8 Number of local jail inmate deaths, by cause of death and selected decedent characteristics, 2000–2014 TABLE 9 Average annual mortality rate per 100,000 local jail inmates, by cause of death and selected decedent characteristics, 2000–2014 TABLE 10 Cause of death for local jail inmates, by time served before death, 2000–2014 TABLE 11 Offenses of deceased local jail inmates, by time served before death, 2000–2014 TABLE 12 Offenses of deceased local jail inmates, by conviction status and time served before death, 2000–2014 TABLE 13 Death location of local jail inmates, by cause of death, 2000– 2014 TABLE 14 Number, percent, average daily population, and mortality rate per 100,000 local jail inmate deaths, by hold status, 2014 TABLE 15 Number and percent of local jail jurisdictions reporting to the Deaths in Custody Program, by number of deaths reported each year, 2000–2014 TABLE 16 Number of local jail inmates held on an average day, by state, 2000 and 2005–2014 TABLE 17 Number of local jail deaths, by state, 2000 and 2005–2014 TABLE 18 Mortality rate per 100,000 local jail inmates, by state, 2000 and 2005–2014 TABLE 19 Number of local jail jurisdictions reporting to the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program, by state, 2000 and 2005–2014 TABLE 20 Number of local jail jurisdictions reporting one or more deaths to the Deaths in Custody Program, by state, 2000 and 2005–2014 TABLE 21 Preliminary number and percent of jail inmate deaths, by select causes, 2015 ************************************************************** ************************** List of appendix tables ************************** APPENDIX TABLE 1 Estimated number of local jail inmates in custody on an average day, by selected inmate characteristics, 2000 and 2005–2014 APPENDIX TABLE 2 Illness mortality rate per 100,000 local jail inmates, by selected decedent characteristics, 2005–2014 APPENDIX TABLE 3 Heart disease mortality rate per 100,000 local jail inmates, by selected characteristics, 2005–2014 APPENDIX TABLE 4 Suicide mortality rate per 100,000 local jail inmates, by selected characteristics, 2005–2014 APPENDIX TABLE 5 Mortality rate for all other unnatural deaths per 100,000 local jail inmates, by selected characteristics, 2005–2014 29 ************************************************************** ************* Methodology ************* Data collection coverage ************************** The Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP) is an annual Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) data collection. It obtains national, state, and incident-level data on persons who died while in the physical custody of the 50 state departments of correction or the approximately 2,800 local adult jail jurisdictions nationwide. This methodology pertains to the local jail portion of the DCRP collection only. See Mortality in State Prisons, 2001-2014 - Statistical Tables (NCJ 250150, BJS web, November 2016) for data and methodology on deaths occurring in prisons. The DCRP began in 2000 in response to the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-297). It is the only national statistical collection to obtain comprehensive information about deaths in adult correctional facilities. Starting in 2000 and annually thereafter, BJS has collected DCRP data directly from the approximately 3,000 jail jurisdictions and maintained an average annual response rate of 98%. BJS uses DCRP data to track national trends in the number and causes of deaths occurring in local jails. Mortality data measured by the DCRP include decedent characteristics, such as age, sex, race or Hispanic origin, date of admission, conviction status, admission offense, and the location and type of facility where the inmate died. The DCRP also collects data about circumstances surrounding the death, including the cause, time, and location where the death occurred, information on whether an autopsy was conducted, and availability of autopsy results to the respondent. Statistics for reference year 2014 presented in this report are current as of April 27, 2016. Preliminary statistics for reference year 2015 presented in this report are current as of August 1, 2016. For more information on mortality in correctional settings, see-- * Assessing Inmate Cause of Death: Deaths in Custody Reporting Program and National Death Index (NCJ 249568, BJS web, April 2016) * Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–07 (NCJ 222988, BJS web, July 2010) * Suicide and Homicide in State Prisons and Local Jails (NCJ 210036, BJS web, August 2005). Respondents provide an aggregate count of the number of deaths that occurred during the referenced calendar year. The jail (CJ- 9) survey instruments used to obtain data on each jail death are available on the BJS website. In addition to the death count, BJS requests that jails provide summary statistics about their population and admissions. BJS asks all jails, including those with no deaths to report (about 80% of jails in any given year), to complete the annual summary survey form. Nonresponse ************* The jail universe includes all jails currently operating and those that BJS contacted for the DCRP but have closed, consolidated, or otherwise eliminated operations. This universe allows BJS to determine jail participation in the DCRP. The most recent jail universe, constructed in January 2016, identified 2,870 jurisdictions representing 3,170 jail facilities. Of these, 2,788 jurisdictions (97.1%) participated in the DCRP. A jail jurisdiction is a legal entity that has responsibility for managing jail facilities. Jail jurisdictions typically operate at the county level, in which a sheriff’s office or jail administrator manages the local facilities. The DCRP data identify the jail facility in which a jail inmate dies, but the data are arrayed at the jail jurisdiction level. BJS defines a jail as a locally operated correctional facility that confines persons before or after adjudication for more than 72 hours, excluding temporary lockups. Determining eligibility for reporting to the DCRP **************************************************** In the DCRP, custody refers to the holding of an inmate in a facility or to the period during which a correctional authority maintains a chain of custody over an inmate. For instance, if a jail transports an ill inmate to a hospital for medical services and that inmate dies while in the chain of custody of the jail, then that death is counted as a death in custody. A death that occurs when an inmate is not in the custody of a correctional authority is considered beyond the scope of the DCRP. Out-of- scope deaths include inmates on escape status or under the supervision of community corrections on probation, parole, or home-electronic monitoring. BJS instructs local jail officials to determine whether the inmate was in the physical custody of the jurisdiction at the time of death, regardless of the reason an inmate was being held. Jail inmate custody includes inmates who are temporarily out of the jail facility but are within the chain of custody of the jail. For example, a death in custody would include a jail inmate who died after being transferred to an offsite facility that cares for critically ill persons. Custody is further complicated by the dual law enforcement and jail administration functions of some sheriffs’ offices. As a result, some deaths reported as jail deaths actually occurred before the jail had custody of the decedent. BJS identifies and excludes from the DCRP these deaths that occurred in the process of arrest by using information about the circumstances surrounding the death. Identifying and excluding duplicate records ********************************************* Duplicate and out-of-scope records are excluded from the analysis. Duplicate death records may occur in the DCRP due to overlapping correctional populations and overlapping duties within correctional facilities. To identify duplicate death records, BJS reconciles the aggregate summary counts of deaths occurring during a calendar year with the number of individual death records obtained from a reporting jurisdiction. When discrepancies are identified, BJS contacts reporting jurisdictions to clarify matters. However, even if summary counts and individual reports are reconciled, duplicate death records may exist if multiple reporting units within a jurisdiction provide reconciled data. Duplicate records occur primarily in reports from jail jurisdictions that have multiple reporting entities. To identify duplicate records, BJS performs record-matching based on inmate name and date of birth, date of death, and date of admission into a correctional facility. After the aggregate count review, BJS searches for deaths reported to both the jail and prison DCRP collections, which most commonly occur when a local jail is housing an inmate for the state department of corrections. The death is considered part of the count of the facility that had custody of the inmate at the time of death, and the duplicate record is deleted. Duplicate and out-of-scope records are excluded from the analyses. Cause-of-death information ****************************** DCRP respondents are instructed to report death information as determined by an autopsy or other official medical death investigation. For this collection, intoxication deaths, accidents, suicides, and homicides are considered discrete causes of death. Although there is a distinction between manner and cause of death from a medico-legal standpoint, no such distinction is made in the DCRP. When reporting a death due to illness, accident, suicide, intoxication, or homicide, BJS requests that respondents describe the events surrounding these deaths. Clinical data specialists convert illness-related death text entries into standard medical codes according to the World Health Organization’s International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). Homicides include all types of intentional homicide and involuntary manslaughter as ruled by a medical examiner or pathologist at autopsy. For example, an inmate may die of positional asphyxia (suffocation caused by body position) while being removed from a cell. A legal-intervention homicide committed while the inmate is trying to escape is included in the homicide count. Homicides also encompass cases that are ruled a homicide at autopsy when events that led to the death occurred prior to incarceration, such as an inmate previously shot in the community who later died from complications of the gunshot wound while incarcerated. Other BJS sources of correctional mortality data **************************************************** BJS collects other data reported to the DCRP on jail mortality. These other collections include-- * The Census of Jails, conducted every 5 to 6 years, provides counts of inmate deaths in local jails. Further discussion of the Census of Jails is available on the BJS website. * The Survey of Jails in Indian Country (SJIC), which provides aggregate counts of the number of deaths occurring in all known Indian country correctional facilities operated by tribal authorities or the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs. Further discussion of the SJIC is available on the BJS website. Reported statistics ********************** Mortality data shown in statistical tables include the number of deaths and mortality rates by year, cause of death, selected decedent characteristics, and the state where the death occurred. Mortality rates are calculated per 100,000 local jail inmates, with the denominators providing estimates of the number of person-years of exposure in custody in institutional corrections. The mortality rate in local jails is calculated as the number of deaths per year divided by the jail inmate average daily population (ADP) multiplied by 100,000. The ADP for local jails is defined as the average daily number of jail inmates held in a jail jurisdiction during a calendar year, from January 1 through December 31. The ADP is used as the denominator for jail mortality rates to accommodate the high turnover and daily fluctuation in local jail populations. Also, the ADP better reflects the number of inmate days per year than a 1-day count. Jail populations have a higher turnover than prison populations. Mean length of stay in local jails is about 21 days, compared to 2 years in state prisons. The jail ADP also reflects the annual number of admissions and mean length of stay, and can be expressed as the product of these two values. When mean length of stay is expressed in years, the ADP is equivalent to the number of person-years spent by jail inmates during a given year. BJS obtains the jail ADP data directly from jails through the DCRP using the summary form CJ- 9A. Starting in 2002, BJS collected the ADP directly from respondents. Prior to 2002, BJS calculated the jail ADP by taking the average of the January 1 count from the prior year and the December 31 count from the reference year, which is an appropriate proxy measure for the ADP. Both denominators provide for annualizing mortality rates, which are calculated separately by group or by characteristic. The annualized mortality rates in state prisons and local jails are comparable to annual crude mortality rates reported by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The NCHS calculates crude mortality rates as the number of events for a period (e.g., a year) divided by the population estimate at the midpoint of the period. For general population mortality statistics, the NCHS employs the midyear population as an approximation to the average population exposed to risk of death during any given year. ***Footnote 1 See Siegal, J. & Swanson, D. (2004). The Methods and Materials of Demography, Second Edition. San Diego, CA: Elsevier Academic Press, 269.*** The crude mortality rates reported in the DCRP annual statistical tables are not directly comparable to the crude mortality rates within the (nonincarcerated) general population, and the crude mortality rates in state prisons are not directly comparable to those of local jails. The composition of the general population (i.e., age, sex, and race or Hispanic origin) differs from the population in local jails. Because mortality is correlated with age, sex, and race or Hispanic origin, the crude mortality rates in local jails and the general population should not be compared. Individual inmate death records collected annually in the death file are included in the national death count. Independent jail- specific summary death counts are collected in the annual summary form (CJ-9A/CJ-10A) and serve as control death totals. If the death count in the summary form file is greater than the count in the individual inmate death file, the summary file count is used as the total in calculating a jail mortality rate. For 2013, individual records for jail inmate deaths were adjusted to match independent counts of deaths occurring in each jail, and the mortality rates were adjusted accordingly. Preliminary 2015 numbers ************************** The 2015 death number is preliminary as of September 6, 2016. At that time, 97% of jails reported death and population data to the DCRP. The 2015 DCRP jail files are currently being finalized and are scheduled to be delivered to BJS in the final quarter of 2016. Final data for data year 2015 is scheduled to be published in 2017. Estimating inmate population characteristics to calculate mortality rates by demographic subgroups ********************************************* To estimate inmate demographic characteristic distributions of the ADP, BJS used data from several surveys to generate distributions of age, sex, and race or Hispanic origin and applied these distributions to the ADP. BJS’s Annual Survey of Jails (ASJ) provided estimates of the sex distribution of inmates for each year of the DCRP collection and applied these to each year’s ADP from the DCRP to estimate the ADP of male and female jail inmates. Jail Inmates at Midyear 2010 - Statistical Tables (NCJ 233431, BJS web, April 2011) documents that the distributions of inmate characteristics have changed slowly over time. For the most recent information on the ASJ, see the BJS website. To estimate the distribution of race and Hispanic origin of adult jail inmates, BJS used data from the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails (SILJ), the National Inmate Survey (NIS), and the Census of Jails to estimate the relative distribution of adults by race and Hispanic origin for different periods. Because the SILJ (2002), the NIS (2007 to 2009), and the Census of Jails (2013) are not fielded annually, the population estimates were smoothed before being applied to DCRP data. BJS used the SILJ estimates to cover the period from 2000 to 2004, the NIS estimates to cover the period from 2005 to 2012, and the Census of Jails to cover 2013. In all cases, the percentages associated with the distribution of race and Hispanic origin were applied to the adult jail ADP. For more information about jail inmates in 2002, see Profile of Jail Inmates, 2002 (NCJ 201932, BJS web, July 2004). To estimate the age distribution of the jail inmate population, BJS first obtained an estimate of the number of jail inmates age 17 or younger from the 2013 Census of Jails data collection. By applying the annual percentage of jail inmates age 17 or younger to the annual ADP, BJS obtained an estimate of the ADP of jail inmates age 17 or younger. To estimate the age distribution of adult jail inmates, BJS used data from the SILJ for 2000 to 2006 and the NIS for 2007 to 2013 to estimate the relative distribution of adults by age category for different periods. The age estimates were smoothed to account for gaps in reference years when age estimates were available, specifically for 2003, 2006, 2010, and 2011. Moving averages ****************** Moving averages were used to smooth short-term irregularities and estimate long-term trends. For instance, moving averages were computed to examine data trends for certain causes of death in prisons while smoothing short-term fluctuations. The data were cut into several 3-year overlapping periods spanning 10 years of jail data. The moving averages in this report describe some changes in cause-specific mortality rates over time (e.g., whether the increase of suicides in jails was recent). Moving averages were not computed for all causes of death in custody because the resultant rates would have been unstable and, therefore, statistically meaningless due to small cell sizes. Random error and suppression ****************************** The DCRP data on deaths in local jails are not subject to sampling error because it is a full enumeration of deaths. However, according to Brillinger and NCHS, mortality data from a complete enumeration may be subject to random error because “the number of deaths that actually occurred may be considered as one of a large series of possible results that could have arisen under the same set of circumstances”—or, death occurs at random. ***Footnote 2 See Brillinger, D.R. (1986). The Natural Variability of Vital Rates and Associated Statistics. Biometrics, 42, 693–734.*** ***Footnote 3 See Xu, J. et al. (2010). Deaths: Final Data for 2007. National Vital Statistics Report, 58 (19). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr58/nvsr58_19.pdf*** The random variation can be large when the number of deaths is small. Therefore, caution is warranted when interpreting statistics based on small numbers of deaths. According to NCHS standards, mortality rates based on fewer than 100 deaths per year should be interpreted with caution. Continuing to use the NCHS and Brillinger methods, BJS quantified random variation by assuming that the appropriate underlying probability distribution for the number of deaths is a Poisson distribution. This provides a computationally simple and reasonable approach for estimating variances in mortality statistics when the probability of dying is low. BJS calculated variances based on the assumption of a Poisson process. From these variances, BJS calculated relative random error estimates. These are comparable to relative standard error because the relative random error is the ratio of random error derived from the Poisson variance, to the number of deaths. Following NCHS practice, when the relative random error exceeded 30%, BJS flags estimated mortality rates due to the instability of the rate with a “!” symbol (Interpret with caution; too few sample cases to provide a reliable rate). *************************************************************** The Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, and the operation of criminal and civil justice systems at the federal, state, tribal, and local levels. BJS collects, analyzes, and disseminates reliable and valid statistics on crime and justice systems in the United States, supports improvements to state and local criminal justice information systems, and participates with national and international organizations to develop and recommend national standards for justice statistics. Jeri M. Mulrow is acting director. This report was written by Margaret Noonan. E. Ann Carson verified the report. Caitlin Scoville and Jill Thomas edited the report. Barbara Quinn produced the report. December 2016, NCJ 250169 *************************************************************** ***************************************************************** Office of Justice Programs Building Solutions • Supporting Communities • Advancing Justice www.ojp.usdoj.gov ***************************************************************** ************************** 12/5/2016 JER 9:30am *************************