Behind Bars Data Project News Today

Yousef Bozorgnia, Sharon Dolovich and Aaron Littman will receive Public Impact Research Awards at a June 2 ceremony.

U.S. prison deaths spiked nearly 50 percent in 2020, jumping to 6,182 deaths from 4,240 in 2019.

Highlights from MSNBC, the Associated Press, the Nation and others.

The death rate surpassed the rate of increases at nursing homes. It was more than twice as high as the increase in the US general population.

Data acquired by the the UCLA School of Law’s Behind Bars Data Project indicates that 6,182 imprisoned people died behind bars in 2020 compared to 4,240 in 2019, a 62 percent increase despite a 10 percent decline in the US prison population. 

The Behind Bars Data Project’s database improves on discontinued efforts by the federal government to report this information.

Inmates advocates criticize conditions at St. Louis jail Eric Berger and Mark Berman, The Washington Post Feb. 8, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail ST. LOUIS - Some inmate advocates and attorneys said Monday that they are not surprised by a weekend uprising at the jail here during which inmates smashed windows and set fires and a corrections officer ended up hospitalized. "They are desperate in there, and anyone would be at this point," Erika Wurst, a lawyer with the St. Louis public defenders office,...