TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Sep 26, 2022

The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says it has uncovered “shocking long-term gaps in federal oversight, including hundreds of uncounted deaths in 2021 alone.” Committee Chair Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, expounded on the findings, saying the investigation uncovered nearly 1,000 deaths in custody in 2021 that went uncounted by the Department of Justice. The committee reports that the Justice Department has been inconsistent with the publishing of data, despite the Death in Custody Act, which requires a count to be made each year. In 2000 and 2014, Congress again passed legislation directing the department to comply with the law but the committee says the department shows no sign it is about to restart reporting the data. Read more of the committee’s findings in a piece by Poynter (scroll to the last article).