“Death Sentence” is a yearslong investigation by The Indianapolis Star which revealed, for the first time, that more than 300 people have died in Indiana county jails since 2010.
Every person held inside a county jail has a constitutional right to health care while incarcerated. But across five investigative articles, a video documentary, two online databases and other content, reporters chronicled widespread problems hidden from the public behind locked jail doors: overcrowding, staffing shortages, callous indifference, medical neglect and physical abuse that claimed another Hoosier life every two weeks.
After building a comprehensive database containing details pulled from hundreds of public records requests, IndyStar journalists found:
At least 76% of the people who died were pre-trial detainees who had not been convicted of a crime
At least 59% who died were arrested on clearly nonviolent charges, including two people who were arrested on warrants for debt collections
Nearly half died within a week of stepping into jail
At least 42% of people died by suicide, a much higher percentage compared to the national jail average of 30%
At least 58 deaths were directly tied to drugs or alcohol, including examples where people likely could have lived had they received appropriate medical care
The journalists also discovered that state lawmakers, who pledged to reform the criminal justice system over the last 10 years to be less punitive, made policy decisions that resulted in the reverse effect, particularly for people who face addiction or other mental health issues. Several sheriffs told IndyStar that their jails had become the de facto mental health providers because of the lack of services in their communities, especially across rural Indiana. As a result, Indiana’s jail population has exploded by 60% since 2010, five times the state’s rate of population growth.
Most alarming, the reporters found that the Indiana Department of Correction had not only severely undercounted the number of jail deaths for more than a decade, but also had allowed problematic jails to continue operating with no repercussions. In fact, the correction department quietly changed its safety criteria in 2019 to make more jails appear safer even as the jails became more dangerous.
Reporters documented the high cost of harmful policies and government inaction, finding that 89% of the deaths occurred in jails that were repeatedly flagged by the state for being overcrowded, understaffed or both. But state corrections leadership, which could have pushed for more staff or sought to alleviate dangerous overcrowding, let county officials slide again and again.
Rather than expand access to public health care, cash-strapped counties have been forced to commit $1 billion to build new jails over the last eight years. Few of those projects, however, address the underlying issues behind the surge in jail populations. Most amount to bigger “warehouses” that perpetuate Indiana’s growing addiction to incarceration – and its deadly fallout.
Journalists vividly described the fallout from the complex policy and social issues by emphasizing the human impact.
How Candice Wheat, who told jailers she wanted to kill herself, was still able to die by suicide. How Brian Gosser, the son of a sheriff, was repeatedly beaten by others on the block. How Johnnie Locklear, suffering from a brain infection, was left untreated and naked on a cement floor. How Jerod Draper, defenseless and strapped to a restraint chair, cried for an officer and a nurse to stop as they continued to Tase him until he fell unconscious of a drug overdose.
Reporters also provided insights on who was responsible for these failures and how to fix the broken system. They also showcased examples of new approaches for breaking a revolving-door cycle that packs Indiana jails with people struggling through addiction and other mental health issues – people who could be helped more effectively, more economically and more humanely in other settings.