Report: 'Safety Failures' Led to 344 Federal Inmate Deaths

Facts

• A review led by US Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz of 344 inmate deaths at US Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities in the years 2014-2021 concluded 'safety failures' were to blame for the deaths caused by suicide, homicide, accident, or unknown factors.¹
• The report, published on Thursday, identified the use of single cells, outdated security camera equipment, and a failure to stop drugs and weapons from entering the prisons among the safety factors to blame.¹
• The report cited 187 cases of death by suicide, while also pointing out systemic failures — wrong mental health assessments, single-cell living, and insufficient checks of prisoners — that contributed to these preventable deaths.²
• In the last four years of the review period, the number of deaths by suicide rose from the first four — even though the inmate population shrunk considerably between 2014 and 2021.³
• This report follows previous inspector general reviews of what led to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's death by suicide and the murder of convicted gangster Whitey Bulger while in prison.³

Sources: ¹US News & World Report, ²Associated Press and ³NBC.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Washington Post. Whether it's a high-profile prisoner like Epstein or any of the rest of the general population of its facilities, the BOP is failing prisoners with mental health issues — some of which are caused by the conditions these people are forced to live in. More must be done to monitor the mental health of prisoners, who should be treated with empathy and should not see their sentences come to tragic ends.
• Narrative B, as provided by BOP. The BOP is doing the best it can, and that's resulted in a lower rate of death by suicide in the prison system than in the US population as a whole. Nonetheless, the BOP would like to see the number of suicides reduced to as close to zero as possible, and that's why it continues to offer a full range of mental health resources to its inmates, and does its due diligence when it comes to monitoring the mental state of the incarcerated.
• Narrative C, as provided by Guardian. America's prisons are unmanageable as a whole. The BOP is short-staffed and underfunded. The mental health of inmates can hardly be the priority of authorities under such circumstances where even basic requirements may not be met adequately or regularly. With the right amount of resources, this problem could be solved.

Predictions