ABSTRACT
Vital statistics place in perspective the trends and patterns of health-related issues in order to identify and classify diseases and manners of death, focus research and assessment, and identify treatment and prevention efforts. This chapter provides an overview of what is known about the reported frequency and nature of arrest-related deaths, officer-involved shootings, and custodial deaths in jails and prisons. An important starting point is to review the data reported about the nature of citizen and police contacts. All arrest-related deaths (ARD) are included in the count regardless of whether physical custody had been established or whether a formal arrest process had been initiated prior to the time of the death. Justifiable homicides committed by the police are considered justified when it is done to prevent imminent death or serious bodily injury to the officer or another person. With the exception of AIDS-related deaths, white prisoners had the highest average annual mortality rate for all illness-related causes of death.
