WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The number of inmates who died in US prisons has been increasing for the third consecutive year, US Justice Department Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) said in a press release on Tuesday.
While the number of illness-related deaths in US prisons has decreased, the number of deaths resulted from suicides, drug or alcohol intoxication, accidents and homicide is on the rise, according to the bureau.
The BJS Deaths in Custody Reporting Program said it has not received such a high death toll data since 2007.
More than 20 percent of all prison deaths occurred in California and Texas, according to the BJS. The majority of inmates who died in prison were more than 35-year-old males.
On July 14, a member of the Choctaw tribe and a longtime community activist Rexdale Henry was found dead by unknown causes in his prison cell following an arrest for failing to pay a traffic fine.
On July 26, African-American woman Ralkina Jones, 37, was found dead in a Cleveland Heights, Ohio, jail cell. Jones was under arrest after a violent argument with her husband.
