How many people die each year in jails and prisons? No one knows
The Los Angeles County jails had a particularly deadly year in 2023, with 45 people dying in custody. There were at least nine drug-related deaths, three suicides, three homicides, one death following signs of hypothermia and several cases where the cause has not yet been determined. By year-end, the county's jails proved deadlier than they were just before the pandemic, when the incarcerated population was much higher.
Yet the fact that we even know these things makes Los Angeles different from many other municipalities, where jail deaths aren't announced in news releases or posted online. That work is often left to zealous attorneys, nosy reporters or occasional oversight committees. And as and Dr. Roger A. Mitchell explore in their 2023 book, ": How America Ignores the Truth and What
