Prisons in US states grow more violent, review finds

WASHINGTON — State prisons in the United States became more violent and nearly 50 percent deadlier over the past five years as authorities struggled to keep enough guards on the job, according to a government-funded report to be released on Wednesday.

The United States locks away more people than any other nation, including about 1 million people in state-run prisons. The previously unreported evaluation, paid for by the US Department of Justice and conducted by an initiative called Safe Inside, found that those systems are under increasing strain, even as many states sharply reduced the number of people they locked up.

"We have fewer staff and they're asked to do more," said John Wetzel, a former head of Pennsylvania's prison system and the chairman of Safe Inside, a nonpartisan research effort focused on improving state prisons. "We're seeing the increased deaths, increase in assaults and there's no argument that these are going up."

The shortage of employees means prisons have fewer people on duty to protect inmates, and fewer who can take them to medical appointments, Wetzel said.

The rising death rate came as the number of assaults on inmates increased 54 percent over the same period, and the number of assaults on prison staff rose 77 percent, the review found. The report did not include details about the raw numbers of assaults.

Rising death rate

The death rate among state prisoners increased 47 percent between 2019 and 2024, the most recent years for which the organization could gather data. The deaths include homicides, suicides and violence, and the report concluded that understaffing and high turnover "likely contribute" to the increase, though researchers said they lacked enough data to prove causation.

The review was based on conditions in 12 state prison systems; most of the rest, it said, did not report adequate information on the number of people who died in their custody. It found that the death rate was 2.8 for every 100,000 prisoners in 2019; by 2024, it had risen to 4.1.

"There are not enough personnel to provide the attention that is needed to people in state custody," said Maria Goellner, vice-president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, which advocates reducing the number of people in prison. "So you do see increased neglect, abuse and violence, and horrendous prison conditions."

She added that part of the problem is that states are imprisoning people "who don't need to be there".

The increase in deaths was particularly sharp in some states. In Alabama, researchers documented 337 inmates who died in 2024, compared to 99 in 2019. In California, which operates one of the nation's largest prison systems, deaths among inmates were largely unchanged even though the state cut its prison population by nearly a quarter.

Spokesmen for the Alabama and California prisons did not respond to questions about the deaths.

Agencies Via Xinhua