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| Prison Deaths Decline Sharply |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 08/23/2005 |
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WASHINGTON -- Improved medical care and better separation of inmates have greatly reduced the number of deaths behind bars in the United States, prisoner rights advocates say. Death rates from suicide, homicide and AIDS all dropped by double digits in 2002, the latest year for which data is available, the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics reported Sunday. State prison homicide rates declined by more than 90 percent since 1980. Jail suicide rates fell more than 60 percent since 1983, when suicide was the leading cause of death among inmates. Death rates from AIDS-related causes also fell sharply, from 20 per 100,000 in 1988 to eight per 100,000 in 2002. In state prisons, AIDS-related death rates fell from 100 per 100,000 inmates in 1995 to 15 per 100,000 in 2000. One reason for the downward trend is that advocacy groups have become much more aggressive in filing lawsuits to improve conditions behind bars, said Kara Gotsch, public policy coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project. The prevalence of gangs in prisons spurred violence that prompted corrections officials to pay more attention to classifying inmates, Gotsch added. "There's much more awareness about the problem of suicides in jails," said Lindsay Hayes, project director for the National Center On Institutions and Alternatives. "Twenty years ago, if you asked a sheriff, he wouldn't have any information on it or any sensitivity to it. It wouldn't be on his radar screen." Today, there is better screening, better training and better mental and medical health staff, Hayes said. The improvements are occurring as the size of the population behind bars heads upward. The number of inmates has been on the increase since the 1980s, with the U.S. prison and jail population now at 2.1 million. |
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