Improving prisoner death statistics: policy brief October 2024

Prisoner mortality rates are up to 50% higher than rates in the community, forming a global human rights and health equity concern, and producing tremendous harms and costs. In 2023, a UN Special Rapporteur warned that ‘prisoners are … dying needlessly’ in a ‘silent global tragedy’. The UN Human Rights Council has recommended that States create systems to collect, compile and analyse data on prisoner deaths. Despite this, we simply do not know how many prisoners die each year around the world.