Deaths in prison: A guide for detention monitors

Deaths in custody – whether from illness, violence, suicide or neglect – raise serious human rights and public health concerns. Overcrowding, inadequate healthcare and poor conditions significantly increase the risk of deaths in custody. States have a heightened duty of care to protect the right to life of people in prison, including obligations to prevent deaths and ensure independent investigations when they occur.

Detention monitors play a crucial role in holding authorities accountable and preventing future deaths. This guide, co-published with the University of Nottingham (supported by funding to Prof. Philippa Tomczak from UK Research and Innovation [grant number MR/T019085/1]) offers practical guidance on monitoring deaths in prison, covering data collection, investigations, prevention and discrimination-related risks. This guide is part of PRI’s Detention Monitoring Tools, and is intended for National Preventive Mechanisms, National Human Rights Institutions, ombudsperson offices, civil society actors and others engaged in oversight of detention.

Drawing on international norms including the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules) and the Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death, the guide also presents promising practices from Brazil, the Philippines and Spain.

Supporting research from the University of Nottingham includes:

• University of Nottingham and University of Galway, Improving prisoner death statistics, Policy Brief, October 2024
• University of Nottingham, Improving death investigations to promote safety, Case study: Prisoner deaths, September 2023
• Tomczak, P., & Mulgrew, R. (2023). Making prisoner deaths visible: Towards a new epistemological approach. Incarceration, 4.
• Tomczak, P. (2021). Reconceptualizing multisectoral prison regulation: Voluntary organizations and bereaved families as regulators. Theoretical Criminology, 26(3), 494-514.

Feedback on the guide includes:

• Dr. Morris Tidball-Binz - United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions - “Many thanks and sincere congratulations for this excellent publication, which I will gladly promote as part of my mandate's work”
• Hugh Chetwynd - Executive Secretary, European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) - “This is certainly a topic with which we engage in many of our prison visits and where we come across many deficient practices so having such a guide will be of great use for both for our Secretariat colleagues and the members of the CPT. It will also be interesting to see how NPMs [National Preventative Mechanisms as mandated under the UN OPCAT] engage with this issue as many of them, to date, do not.”