How we count.
This record exists to be trusted by the people it serves and unassailable by the agencies it scrutinizes. Every public figure is sourced, dated, tier-rated, and correctable. Here is exactly how.
A death in custody is counted wherever it happens.
“If an inmate is transferred to a medical facility and dies there… absent the medical condition, [they] would have been in prison at the time of death… Although the person was not physically in a correctional facility at the time of death, the death is still one of an incarcerated individual.”
— U.S. DOJ, Bureau of Justice Assistance — DCRA Reporting Guidance & FAQ v5.2 (April 2025), p. 7
“State prisons report the death of any inmate sent outside the prison facility for treatment services… Deaths that occur while a prisoner is in transit to or from the prison are included.”
— U.S. DOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics — Mortality in Correctional Institutions methodology
We adopt the federal standard verbatim: a person who would have been in prison but for a medical transfer, and who dies at an outside hospital, in transit, or by ambulance, is counted as an in-custody death — tagged by place of death so the distinction stays visible.
Recording the hospital as the place of death is correct. The question this record presses is one of countability: whether a death is included in the count of in-custody deaths at all, and how that total is framed for the public. We keep those two things rigorously separate.
Michigan’s statutory Prisoner Mortality Report does list deaths at outside hospitals and even by ambulance. So we make no blanket claim that hospital deaths are erased. Our posture is precise: we publish an independent documented-minimumcount, tag every death by place of death, and surface where a narrower “died at the facility” framing diverges from an all-locations count that the federal standard requires. Where the official record and ours disagree, we state it as a documented discrepancy and an open question — never as a proven motive.
In the MDOC §608 Prisoner Mortality Report, an on-record MDOC statement, or a FOIA-obtained death-notification form.
Independently reported by two or more credible sources.
Reported once and not yet matched or corroborated. Shown separately; never in the headline count.
An OTIS status change consistent with a death. A lead to investigate — never, on its own, proof of death.
Only T1 and T2 records feed the headline count. Lower tiers are shown, clearly labeled, so nothing is hidden and nothing is overstated.
Every datum carries its source link, an archived snapshot, and a retrieval timestamp. Records move between tiers only on new evidence, logged in an append-only audit trail — corrections are added, never quietly overwritten. If we get something wrong, we fix it in the open and say so. To report an error or a death we have missed, write [email protected].
- Statute: Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 — Pub. L. 113-242; 34 U.S.C. § 60105
- Hospital-death rule (compliance): DOJ/BJA, DCRA Reporting Guidance & FAQ v5.2 (April 2025), p. 7
- Hospital/transit rule (statistical): DOJ/BJS, Mortality in Correctional Institutions methodology
- Michigan: no state reporting law (pass-through): State of Michigan Death In Custody Reporting Plan (MSP/GCSD)
- Federal undercount evidence: GAO-22-106033 (Sept 2022): ~990 deaths potentially unreported; 70% of records incomplete