Being Arrested Is Nearly Twice As Deadly For African-Americans As Whites

[Recursion]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/being-arrested-is-nearly-twice-as-deadly-for-african-americans-as-whites/

Sandra Bland’s death last week in a Texas jail — police say she committed suicide, but her family and friends have disputed that — has provoked questions about how police treated her and how they treat other African-American women.

The investigation being conducted by the Texas Rangers and the FBI will help determine what happened to Bland specifically, but we can put her death in context with national statistics on deaths in custody and arrest-related deaths.1 The data includes demographic information, so we can see how it varies by race.



Among whites, African-Americans and Hispanics being held in local jails, African-Americans are the least likely to commit suicide. Instead, illnesses — and heart disease, in particular — are the most common causes of deaths for black inmates while in custody. White inmates are five times as likely to commit suicide in jail as blacks.

Although African-Americans are at a lower risk of death in local jails than whites overall (largely because of the higher rate of suicide among white inmates), they face a higher risk of arrest-related death specifically. Among every 100,000 black people who are arrested, 5.6 die, compared with only 3 of every 100,000 white arrestees.

[Gothmog]

1. I love Nate Silver

[99th_Monkey]

2. I have no doubt this is true, and that may be understating it. -nt-

[marym625]

3. I find all these numbers suspect

I don't believe a word that comes from law enforcement regarding death of arrested or incarcerated people.

Additionally, why the fuck are so many people dying from disease in prison? Obviously, we treat these people worse than animals.

When it comes to the "justice system" in the USA, we SUCK!

[Recursion]

4. At least in TX you are not guaranteed any of your prescribed medicines

In fact, you're pretty much guaranteed not to get them, because any medication requires a prescription from a prison doctor (your outside doctor's prescription doesn't matter).

[marym625]

5. like I said,

We suck.

[marym625]

6. Just out of curiosity

Are these doctors people that practice anywhere besides the prisons?

[Recursion]

7. A jail probably won't have a doctor (a prison will)

but maybe an LPN or RN. Most states' corrections departments have doctors working for them full time, but the jails aren't run by the state corrections department but by the city or county. If the medical officer can't prescribe (an RN, for instance), then there's going to be a big delay while the town calls up whatever doctor they have on retainer for this. If they even do that.

This is specifically jails, not prisons, so I'd suspect that the lack of medical facilities and personnel (as compared to a prison) is a big problem.

[marym625]

9. wow.

Thanks for the information. I had no idea it was that bad.

[jberryhill]

10. If you read the report...

"Heart attack" is included as "illness". Unsurprisingly, given that heart ailments are already the leading cause of death bar none, the added stress of being arrested and jailed merely amplifies that.

The numbers would be more interesting if normalized against the rate of causes in the general population.

In a population of 100,000 over two years, yeah some people will die. Towns smaller than that have funeral homes which don't go broke. What would be of interest is whether certain causes are increased or decreased and by how much (auto accident, for example, being probably zero).

[jberryhill]

12. You seem to be confusing "jail" and "prison"

These are two different things.

The full report is here:

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/mljsp0012st.pdf

[marym625]

15. What did I say to make you think that?

I am not confusing them. I am well aware of the difference between the two

[Igel]

13. If you're sentenced to life,

you die in prison. Mostly from disease.

Preexisting conditions also matter; asthma's more of an issue for AfAms than for whites, for example. Diabetes and hypertension, as well. Asthma may be environmental; but hypertension's probably genetic, and there's a view that the racial correlation with diabetes also goes back to genetics in some way. (I suspect that the #s for Latinos and other groups would force reconsideration of how we view this data; also data broken down by class. We're given this particular data in this particular format to lead us to the conclusion the writer wants us to reach, not to make us aware of all the data and the patterns in the full data set.)

[marym625]

16. I don't understand what your point is.

If you are sentenced to life, and actually serve life, it should be natural causes not disease

Of course the breakdown would give us better information but on a high level, this shows how little care people receive.

Additionally, there are tons of studies that show asthma, diabetes and diseases that are normally worse due to surroundings and diet, are higher among minorities because of horrible medical care, the ability to receive medical care, poor diet and the ability to pay for a good diet, and education on all of that

I used to volunteer for a charity called MOBILE CARE that has a few mobile doctor offices. They go to schools and neighborhoods in inner city Chicago. They specifically treat kids and parents with asthma. The rate of emergency room visits, attacks, etc has dramatically decreased because of this great charity.

Citing statistics about minority illness that is due to economics pretty much proves the point that we suck.

[jberryhill]

8. He chose race, instead of sex or age

Which is kind of interesting in itself. That report has a lot of demographic breakouts - including gender and age.

But I don't understand the point. At 198 per 100,000 - 1 in 500 - the suicide rate is still strikingly higher than in the general population.

[udbcrzy2]

11. St. Louis City Jail

I know someone who got busted for cocaine, he put the cocaine (in foil) in his mouth to hide it from the cops, got busted and had like 5 heart attacks while in custody before EMT's came. He died. The funeral director said that around his mouth, he had bruising. We think that they beat him in the mouth because they knew he had the cocaine hidden in there and he ended up swallowing it. Nothing ever became of this. I know his family tried to get the cops charged, but nothing ever happened.

[Comrade Grumpy]

14. This is no surprise. But it is unacceptable.