Arrest-Related Deaths Program, 2017-2019

Research and data-collection activities for the Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) portion of the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP) of the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) annual data collections on deaths in custody. The DCRP data collection has three components: local jails, state prisons, and law enforcement agencies. The third component and the focus of this announcement is on individual-level data on persons who died in the process of arrest or in the custody of state of local law enforcement personnel. The Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) program is an annual national census of persons who died either during the process of arrest or while in the custody of state or local law enforcement personnel. The ARD program collects data on civilian deaths caused by any use of force by state or local law enforcement personnel as well as those not directly related to actions of law enforcement, such as deaths attributed to suicide, intoxication, accidental injury, and illness or natural causes.