Total of 614 Deaths Reported in Federal Custody in FY 2020, 31% Increase from FY 2019
A recent report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) indicated that deaths in federal custody in fiscal year (FY) 2020 rose to its highest level since FY 2016. Similarly, BJS reported an average increase in arrest-related deaths and deaths in custody in 2020 compared to data from FY 2016 and FY 2019, the last two reports in this series.
BJS statisticians defined a death in custody as “death that occurs while the decedent is detained or incarcerated for violating federal criminal or administrative law and housed in any facility designed to detain or incarcerate such individuals for longer than 72 hours.” Further, they defined an arrest-related death as “a death that occurs when the event causing the death (e.g., gunshot wound, self-inflicted injury, cardiac arrest, fall from a height, or drowning) while the decedent’s freedom to leave is restricted by federal law enforcement personnel acting in an official capacity.”
In FY 2020, federal law enforcement agencies reported 65 arrest-related deaths and 614 deaths in custody. A recorded 491 deaths in custody were the result of illnesses or natural causes, accounting for 84 percent of the deaths. Thirty-two manners of deaths were listed as other or unknown/missing. Suicide was the cause of 53 deaths (9.1 percent), and homicides amounted to 16 deaths (2.7 percent).
The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) accounted for the larger amounts of arrest-related deaths at 33 and 17 respectively. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) listed six arrest-related deaths and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported four. The remaining five arrest-related deaths were spready across several agencies.
The report also noted that 47 percent of the 65 arrest-related deaths in 2020 were homicides, 26 percent were suicides, and 13 percent were natural causes or accidents. Approximately 60 percent of arrest-related deaths in FY 2020 involved law enforcement serving a warrant. There were 33 officer-involved shooting deaths during an arrest in the same year, according to the report.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) accounted for the vast majority of deaths in custody at 505 of the 614. USMS reported 78 deaths in custody while Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) listed 21. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) also reported eight deaths in custody. CBP reported the final two.
Prior to 2020, approximately 54 arrest-related and 449 custody-related deaths occurred on average annually. Between 2019 and 2020, fatalities in federal custody increased by 31 percent.
The report was the third in a series of publications from the agency concerning deaths in custody. This data collection was initiated in 2016 in response to the Death in Custody Reporting Act (DICRA), which requires federal law enforcement agencies to report any death of a person who dies while in detention, arrest, or being arrested. In the most recent fiscal years, statistics were only available for FY 2016 and FY 2019.
The Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Prisons did not respond to our request for comment. The U.S. Marshals Service acknowledged the inquiry but has not yet responded.