Limits of Correctional Health Reporting: Findings From a Nationwide Jail Mortality Survey (2019–2024)

Abstract

This article presents findings from a national survey of 287 counties across 43 states assessing jail mortality between 2019 and 2024 in an attempt to compare private health care provider outcomes with county providers. The findings demonstrated that currently available information cannot serve as a reliable measure of health care quality in correctional settings due to sociocultural reporting constraints. Institutional and cultural deterrents to objective reporting have led to incomplete records, misclassified causes of death, and failures to maintain legally mandated death reports. There is a clear need for health benchmarking and clear definitions for reporting in correctional health care to enable valid comparisons between health care provider models. The paper draws attention to a recently established correctional health care-specific patient safety organization as a potential solution to enable correctional health care providers to better understand the drivers of health care outcomes in correctional facilities.