Illinois Deaths Behind Bars - Sources
- Illinois Deaths in Custody Project – Approximately 80-100 people die in custody in Illinois prisons every year. IDCP facilitates an interactive website as exhibit and memorial to archive, highlight and mourn the deaths of all people in Illinois prisons. Through community events, engagement within the prisons, and research and investigation outside, IDCP works to create an archive of eulogies and letters from people incarcerated in Illinois, and documents attained through Freedom of Information Act requests about the deaths of incarcerated people in Illinois from 2010 to the present. IDCP aims to reveal the ways the carceral state processes, records and simultaneously erases the deaths of people in Illinois prisons.
- Third City Project – The Third City Project promotes the well-being of people and communities impacted by the criminal legal system by shining a light on health data behind the walls. We advocate for data transparency and ethical health care policies grounded in science. The Third City Project offers data on deaths in custody by request, with a full listing of their data holdings, including Illinois, here.
- UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project – This project collects and analyzes public information about carceral mortality in prisons, jails, youth facilities, and immigration detention centers across the United States. The project’s centralized source of data enables greater oversight of and accountability for carceral institutions. This project, started in March 2020, initially focused on the impact of COVID behind bars and February 2023 announced a new phase for the project expanding the scope to deaths from all causes. Illinois specific data is available here.