Report: North Carolina jails recorded record deaths in 2020
(The Center Square) – North Carolina jails reported a record number of deaths in 2020, with the majority stemming from suicide or related to substance abuse, according to a new report.
Disability Rights North Carolina (DRNC) published its 2020 Deaths in Jails Report this week to highlight a record number of jail deaths and to call on the General Assembly to adopt reforms to address the increasing trend.
“DRNC’s findings are deeply troubling and demonstrate that every year, NC’s jails get more dangerous, especially for people with disabilities,” according to the report. “The number of suicides and drug-related deaths, including from overdose or withdrawal, continued to rise.”
North Carolina jails reported 56 people died because of suicide, illness or injury in 2020. Thirty-two of the deaths were suicide or substance-use related, up from 30 deaths in 2019 and 22 in 2018. The other causes of death for jail inmates in 2020 included 20 deaths because a medical condition, two deaths from COVID-19, one assault death and one unknown cause.
“It is significant that these deaths continued to increase in 2020, a time when some jails took steps to decrease their overall jail populations due to the pandemic,” DRNC reported. “It was also the first year that new regulations were in place to address this alarming rise in suicide deaths.”
The report is the fourth from DRNC focused on suicides in North Carolina jails, which often house the most vulnerable people in society, many with acute mental health and substance use disorders.
None of DRNC’s previous recommendations for addressing jail deaths have been adopted by the General Assembly, though state Rep. Carla Cunningham, D-Charlotte, filed a bill last year to require the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to conduct compliance reviews after reports of an attempted suicide.
Cunningham told NC Health News she introduced the bill after a 17-year-old died in the Mecklenburg Jail North Juvenile Detention Center.
“I started looking at it closely and saw that, yes, these things were happening in facilities,” Cunningham said. “And that it really is not a lot of oversight or a collection of the data. … The information is there, but you’ve got to dig for it.”
Cunningham told the news site she believed the bill did not gain approval because lawmakers did not want to put “additional stressors” on sheriffs who run local jails.
“This report demonstrates North Carolina needs more stringent oversight of our jails. That the number of deaths by suicide actually increased during the same year jails were required to put in place suicide prevention programs should be an emergency wake up call to legislators, sheriffs, jail administrators, and our communities,” DRNC attorney Susan Pollitt said in a prepared statement. “By my review of media accounts and obituaries, these 21 people left behind at least 18 kids and six grandchildren. These families will carry these losses with them for the rest of their lives.”
DRNC offered several recommendations to turn the numbers around, including legislation mandating jails report how inmates die, adding more jail inspectors to the North Carolina Division of Health Service Regulation, more robust and systematic suicide prevention programs, improving medical care with proper clinical oversight for those with substance abuse issues and engaging in a community campaign to reduce the number of people with mental health and substance abuse problems in jails.
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