The Los Angeles County jails had a particularly deadly year in 2023, with 45 people dying in custody. There were at least nine drug-related deaths, three suicides, three homicides, one death following signs of hypothermia and several cases where the cause has not yet been determined. By year-end, the county's jails proved deadlier than they were just before the pandemic, when the incarcerated population was much higher.
The huge problem is we actually don't know. To start with, there's a lack of systemic data collected about deaths in jails - there was a period of time when the Department of Justice actually did know the number of people who were dying in particular facilities. But the government isn't collecting that data at the moment. So we literally don't know at a national level whether Los Angeles County is an outlier or whether it's normal.
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