Summary

The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority is required by both Illinois state legislation (730 ILCS 210/) and federal legislation (34 U.S.C. § 60105) to collect, report, and publish specific data on deaths that occur among individuals in custody of Illinois local and state law enforcement agencies or as a result of an officer’s use of force.

ICJIA collects death in custody data from three sources: Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) Planning & Research Unit, IDOC Jail Detention Standards Unit (JDSU), and the Illinois State Police (ISP). Additionally, law enforcement agencies may report deaths in custody via ICJIA’s online reporting tool. ICJIA has collaborated with the aforementioned state agencies to modify pre-existing death in custody reporting procedures to collect all data pursuant to state and federal legislation.

In addition to data collection, management, reporting, and publishing requirements for deaths in custody, ICJIA is statutorily required to publish an annual report detailing Illinois deaths in custody.

Key findings from the analysis of death in custody data collected in the calendar year 2023 include:

  • Agencies reported 134 deaths.
  • State prisons accounted for 60.4% of all deaths (81).
  • 44.7% of deaths were of Black individuals.
  • While 43.3% of deaths were attributed to natural causes, in 33.6% of cases, the cause of death had not been reported by the time of this publication.

ICJIA is following a multipart strategy to improve data collection and auditing procedures to better comply with reporting requirements (730 ILCS 210/). This strategy includes:

  1. Auditing media reports cases to identify missing cases
  2. Addressing law enforcement training and reporting mechanisms for deaths due to officer use of force.
  3. Conducting a survey of efforts to reduce deaths in custody by local authorities
  4. Creating a system to monitor updates to death in custody reports due to revised reports and/or audits.