Title: How often do prisoners die behind bars? - The Washington Post
Headings: How often do prisoners die behind bars?
How often do prisoners die behind bars?
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Content: Local authorities ruled her death a suicide, while her family and friends said it was “unfathomable” that she would have taken her own life. Support our journalism. Subscribe today. arrow-right
Even as Bland’s death has created a national firestorm, with the traffic stop that preceded her arrest drawing heavy criticism, this situation also points to another reality of the U.S. criminal justice system: The staggering number of inmates who die behind bars each year. An average of about a dozen inmates die each day, according to the Justice Department. About 4,400 jail and prison inmates die every year, federal statistics show, a tally that does not include executions (which are infrequent, numbering in the dozens each year and adding up to just a fraction of all other inmate deaths). Advertisement
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Most of these deaths occur in state prisons, where 3,351 inmates died in 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. State prisons have the largest inmate populations, accounting for a little more than half of all inmates in custody that year. [ Prosecutor on Sandra Bland autopsy: