Deaths in Custody Reporting Program and Annual Survey of Jails

Deaths in Custody Reporting Program BJS initiated the DCRP in response to the Death in Custody Reporting Act (DICRA) of 2000 (P.L. 106-297), which encouraged states to report certain information related to the deaths of individuals in the custody of law enforcement agencies. BJS developed three data collection efforts under the DCRP; these obtained data on deaths in state prisons, in local jails, and in the process of arrest to include deaths occurring in police lockups. BJS has collected data under the DCRP since 2000 and currently collects data directly from state prisons and local jails. BJS temporarily suspended collecting data on deaths in the process of arrest in order to undertake methodological research to improve the reliability of these data. Annual Survey of Jails Through the ASJ, BJS collects data annually on jail inmate populations from a nationally-representative sample of local jails in the United States. BJS began the ASJ in 1982 and has conducted it annually except for 1983, 1988, 1993, 1999, and 2005, when censuses of local jails were conducted. Through the ASJ, BJS tracks national jail population size and changes in jail inmate characteristics, jail capacity and crowding, flows of inmates moving into and out of jails, and use of jail space by other correctional institutions. The ASJ does not collect inmate-level information. The data are used by federal and state agencies, local officials in conjunction with jail administrators, researchers, planners, and the public.