In-Custody Deaths Remain Mired in Darkness

Date:  05-25-2025 Jails are some of the deadliest facilities in the U.S., and they continue to operate as black holes with very little oversight from the counties and sheriffs that run them

From Prism: Andrea Armstrong launched a project six years ago that seemed impossible at the time: compiling a database on the number of people who have died while incarcerated in Louisiana. Understanding the full depth of the prison death crisis in the United States has long been a challenge. While prisons are mandated by state laws to file reports on the deaths of people under their supervision, the rules are much weaker for the county and city jails that typically detain those who have been arrested but have yet to face trial for their alleged crimes. Armstrong, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans, launched the Incarceration Transparency project in 2019. The online database tracked deaths in every prison, jail, and youth detention facility in Louisiana and South Carolina from 2015 to 2021. The site also features a heat map of Louisiana parishes and the number of incarcerated people who have died in each area. The database also gives users a breakdown of the available information associated with each death. Continue reading here.