Death and disappearance: Measuring racial disparities in mortality and life expectancy among people in state prisons, United States 2000-2014.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Research on carceral institutions and mortality finds that people in prisons and jails have a high risk of death immediately following release from custody and that while incarcerated, racial disparities in prisoner mortality counter observed death patterns among similarly situated non-incarcerated, demographic groups. Yet, many of these studies rely on data prior to the millennium, during the COVID-19 pandemic, or are relegated to a small number or select group of states. In this paper, we explore changes in mortality and life-expectancy among different demographic groups, before and after the Great Recession, across forty-four states that reported deaths in custody to the federal government between 2000 and 2014.

Methods

Drawing on a novel dataset created and cu

SUBMITTER: Sykes BL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11801571 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature