Deaths in Custody Reporting Reform Act

This section explicitly outlines the expanded goals of the Act, which include improving reporting across a wider range of custodial settings (jails, prisons, temporary law enforcement detention, immigration, juvenile facilities, private facilities), understanding the prevalence and characteristics of these deaths, developing prevention policies, increasing data availability at all levels, and standardizing definitions for data collection. It clarifies that deaths in transit, departing facilities, or involving law enforcement during arrest/pursuit are included.

This provision shifts the responsibility for collecting state death in custody reports from the Attorney General to the Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). It significantly expands the data points required for each death, including date of birth, manner and cause of death, location of incident (e.g., during encounter, transport, facility, healthcare), whether an investigation was conducted, and if use of force was involved. It also requires reporting the date the deceased entered custody and the average daily population of the facility.

This section extends the deadline for states to submit reports from 120 days to 270 days after the end of each fiscal year. It also introduces a new provision for the first fiscal year after enactment, allowing states that fail to comply with reporting requirements to dedicate funds that would otherwise be reallocated to other states towards assisting their own compliance efforts.

This new section mandates the Director of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to conduct a study using the reported death in custody information. The study must identify means to reduce such deaths and examine the relationship between the number of deaths and the actions of management or personnel in jails, prisons, and other carceral facilities. NIJ is required to submit a final report to Congress every three years and an interim report after one year, and may provide grants for research and identification/reporting assistance.

This section requires the Director of BJS to submit an annual report to Congress and make it publicly available online by July 31 each year. The report must include searchable data on deaths in custody, disaggregated by demographics, facility, location, cause, and manner of death, including deaths within 30 days post-release under specific medical conditions. BJS must also create a publicly accessible, machine-readable, and searchable database of de-identified death in custody information, including open-source data. It also mandates BJS, in consultation with NCHS, to develop consensus definitions for manner of death.

This section establishes a six-member Review Panel, appointed by the Attorney General in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, with specific expertise requirements (e.g., vital statistics, forensic pathology, correctional research, public health, National Academies, family members of deceased, formerly incarcerated individuals). The Panel is tasked with assessing compliance, examining reporting barriers, holding annual public hearings (with subpoena authority for testimony from officials and other parties), and submitting annual recommendations to the Attorney General and other agencies to improve reporting and reduce deaths. It explicitly prohibits ranking custodial systems for compliance or penalizing jurisdictions for higher incidence of death.

This section requires the Director of NCHS to include a checkbox or equivalent designation on the U.S. standard certificate of death to indicate whether a death was "in custody" within one year of enactment. NCHS must also provide guidance to states to adopt similar designations on their death certificates. Furthermore, it mandates NCHS to make records from the National Death Index, including cause of death information, available at no cost to qualified requesters for research, reporting, or documenting deaths in custody, overriding existing privacy restrictions.

This section imposes specific requirements on the Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for "covered deaths" (deaths in custody, during arrest/pursuit by ICE/CBP, or within 30 days post-release from immigration detention). It requires public disclosure of such deaths within 48 hours, completion of an investigation within 90 days (examining circumstances, forensic reports, eyewitness accounts, medical records, and standard of care), and a detailed public report within 90 days. It also mandates a joint annual report to Congress assessing patterns and recommending prevention strategies.

This section authorizes the appropriation of $6,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2027 through 2037 to carry out sections 5 (NIJ Study), 6 (BJS Reporting), 7 (Review Panel), and 8 (NCHS Integration) of the Act.