Loyola Law releases the first comprehensive report on inmate deaths in Louisiana. Law Professor Andrea Armstrong said the study analyzed data on 786 known inmate fatalities from 2015 to 2019. She said medical death is the majority cause behind bars but yet when you look at preexisting conditions only half were diagnosed while incarcerated.
“And that raises questions about the adequacy of the health services in terms of diagnosis, early treatment for people who are diagnosed behind bars,” said Armstrong.
Inmate deaths include those in state prisons, parish jails, and detention centers. Armstrong said six percent of inmate deaths were suicide and where they occurred in parish facilities was surprising, almost half in solitary confinement.
“Where you would expect people to have more supervision and more contact with the medical and mental health department,” said Armstrong.
Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the world and Armstrong said the state does not have any mandatory standards governing confinement conditions and no independent oversight of what happens behind bars.
“And we have to ask whether if we had mandatory standards or independent oversight whether we would still have such a high rate of deaths,” said Armstrong.
Armstrong said the report is based on 70% of the facilities that they requested records from, which means 30% did not comply with the state’s public records law.
For the entire report Louisiana Deaths Behind Bars – Incarceration Transparency
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