Nearly 7,000 people died in custody in Texas in past decade

[sheshe2]

Last edited Thu Sep 15, 2016, 11:22 PM - Edit history (1)

Nearly 7,000 people died in Texas jails and prisons or while in police custody over the past decade, researchers revealed Wednesday.

The numbers from a University of Texas at Austin research institute showed an average of 623 such deaths over the 10-year period, with a spike in 2015 to 683 custodial deaths. Pre-booking deaths and deaths in the process of an arrest jumped 84% last year to 153, up from the 83 deaths reported in 2005, according to the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis.

Nearly 90% of the people who died in such encounters had not been charged with any crimes. Over 1,900 of those who died in custody in Texas died without ever having been convicted of a crime, the numbers showed.

Researchers obtained the data, which is fully available and searchable online, through public information requests from the Texas Attorney General’s office. A lack of available national figures about deaths in custody makes the Texas data hard to put in context.

More http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/7-000-people-died-custody-texas-decade-article-1.2730186

More Here

http://texasjusticeinitiative.org/

[niyad]

1. beyond appalling.

[Gothmog]

2. Waller County is full of racist idiots

I met the Democratic Candidate for sheriff in Waller County. I hope that he wins

[sheshe2]

4. I hope so too, Gothmog.

It is time to end this shit.

[Travis_0004]

3. Just telling us the number is 7,000 doesn't really tell us anything

If somebody is given a life sentence, there is a 100% chance they will die in prison. If they die at 60, 70 or 80, that isn't really alarming.

[Chakab]

6. If you bothered to read beyond the title of the thread, you would have seen this:

"Nearly 90% of the people who died in such encounters had not been charged with any crimes. Over 1,900 of those who died in custody in Texas died without ever having been convicted of a crime, the numbers showed."

These weren't lifers dying in the infirmary. They were largely people who had been taken into custody but had not yet been formally charged. So, yes, it is really alarming.

[Igel]

10. You're misreading it.

They talk about 7000, and then in the next paragraph break it down to say how many had not yet been formally charged.

"Nearly 90% of the people who died in such encounters had not been charged with any crimes. Over 1,900 of those who died in custody in Texas died without ever having been convicted of a crime, the numbers showed." Those not yet charged are among those not yet convicted, yet all those who died and weren't convincted rose to only 27% of the total. Part of that 27% are those who were the "90% ... not yet charged."

It's written poorly. In the end, most of the deaths happened due to natural causes, and that included old age. Suicides were cause #2.

What's news are the inferences from the poorly written parts. While the deaths are high, these include not only illness but those arrested wounded, those taken in on drugs, those who die from stress-induced heart-attacks, as well as suicides.

[raging moderate]

5. The fact that nearly 90% had not been charged with a crime tells us a lot.

There is something terribly wrong here. I worked as a typist for the Southern Illinois University Police during graduate school to earn money for my tuition. Let me tell you, these were all good old country boys, from the area, with all the virtues and defects of their tribe. However, everybody they arrested survived that experience. Black, white, and whatever.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. ...

[Tortmaster]

8. Since 2014, ...

... President Obama has been on the case:

Death in Custody Reporting Act - Requires states that receive allocations under specified provisions of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, whether characterized as the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Programs, the Local Government Law Enforcement Block Grants Program, the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, or otherwise, to report to the Attorney General on a quarterly basis certain information regarding the death of any person who is detained, arrested, en route to incarceration, or incarcerated in state or local facilities or a boot camp prison. Imposes penalties on states that fail to comply with such reporting requirements..

Enacted in 2014. None too soon.

[Mc Mike]

9. That body count's equal to 2 9/11 terror attacks. It's as many people as we lost in both the Iraq

Afghanistan war zones.

I just saw that a woman just won a $4.6 million dollar lawsuit against Target in S. Carolina, because she got her hand stabbed by a used syringe in the parking lot. The Bland family got $1.9 million, in other words they were 'compensated' as though she would have earned $50,000/year, for the next 40 years. They got pennies on the dollar for what her earnings would have been, because she was young and looked as if she had a promising future. And they got zero for actually losing decades of living with and loving her. And she got zero for the pain and suffering of dying in custody.