HELP US END MASS INCARCERATION
The Prison Policy Initiative uses research, advocacy, and organizing to dismantle mass incarceration. We’ve been in this movement for 25 years, thanks to individual donors like you.
Can you help us sustain this work?
Thank you,
Peter Wagner, Executive Director Donate
Can you help us sustain this work?
Thank you,
Peter Wagner, Executive Director Donate
Mortality
Death and dying
- Shifts in jail incarceration affect county deaths (Created: 2025)
- Risk of death — especially overdose — is much higher for people who have been incarcerated (Created: 2025)
- Incarceration increases risk of death more than most other individual risk factors (Created: 2025)
- Incarceration increases risk of overdose death more than most other individual risk factors (Created: 2025)
- As jail incarceration rates increases, so do county death rates (Created: 2025)
- Black and white women's mortality rates increase with higher jail rates more than men's do, across almost all ages (Created: 2025)
- Most jail suicides occur within a month of admission, and more than 1 in 10 occur within one day (Created: 2024)
- Exposure to extreme heat is deadliest for people in Northeast prisons (Created: 2023)
- Hotter summer days are killing people in state prisons (Created: 2023)
- Jail suicide rates: Out of step with the nation (and U.S. prisons) (Created: 2022)
- Deaths of imprisoned people increased 46% in 2020 (Created: 2022)
- Across the country, prisons have seen higher COVID-19 infection and mortality rates than their surrounding states (Created: 2021)
- More than half of all jail deaths occur within a month of admission (Created: 2021)
- Women in jail died of drug and alcohol intoxication at nearly twice the rate of men in 2018 (Created: 2021)
- The rise in state prison deaths has outpaced the growth of prison populations since 2001 (Created: 2021)
- The rise in deaths from drug and alcohol intoxication since 2001 has dramatically outpaced the rise in deaths from any other cause (Created: 2021)
- Suicide rates have always been higher inside prisons, and the gap is widening (Created: 2021)
- Deaths by suicide, homicide and intoxication are on the rise in state prisons (Created: 2021)
- Solitary confinement increases the risk of premature death after release (Created: 2020)
- Increased risk of death after release from prison for people who experienced solitary confinement compared to those who did not (Created: 2020)
- Terminal and chronic illnesses are the leading causes of death among older people in prison (Created: 2020)
- Jail mortality rates by cause of death, 2000-2016 (Created: 2020)
- Recently incarcerated people are over 40 times more likely to die from an opioid overdose (Created: 2018)
- Analysis of murder rates from 1995 - 2015 (Created: 2016)
- Prison mortality rates by cause of death, 2001-2013 (Created: 2015)
- Capital Punishment is Increasingly Unusual (Created: 2015)
- Executions, 1953-2001 (Created: 2003)
- Death row population, 1953-2001 (Created: 2003)
Events
- November 18-21, 2026:
Members of our Research team, will be attending the American Society of Criminology annual meeting in Chicago from November 18th through the 21st. Please reach out if you’d like to set up a meeting.
Not near you?
Invite us to your city, college or organization.