People who become involved in the criminal justice system are likely to face numerous difficulties. They may be accused of serious crimes, and even if they are ultimately found not guilty, the damage to their reputation and their lives can be irreparable. In many of the worst cases, people may die while in police custody, or preventable deaths may occur in correctional facilities. Over the past several decades, there have been tens of thousands of deaths that occurred while people were in the custody of law enforcement. However, the true scope of this problem is unknown due to problems with the reporting of these types of deaths to the federal government.
Problems With the Implementation of the Death in Custody Reporting Act
The Death in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA), a federal law that was passed in 2000 and updated in 2014, requires states to report the deaths of people who are held in police custody, inmates in local and state correctional facilities, and others who are killed by police officers to the Department of Justice. This law also required the DOJ to compile statistics on these deaths and make a report to Congress with recommendations on how preventable deaths may be reduced.
Unfortunately, the DOJ has struggled to collect data from states, and even though its report to Congress was due in 2016, it has yet to provide the required information. While a voluntary reporting system used by the Bureau of Justice Statistics was able to document deaths that occurred between 2000 and 2019, this program ended in 2019. Since then, around 5,000 deaths have gone unreported, with 15 states failing to report any deaths related to arrests and seven states failing to report any deaths in local prisons.
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