this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2022
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Anyone got stats on how many prisoners died while in custody in the US during the 20th century? (hexbear.net)
submitted 4 years ago by Sharon@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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Weird how the internet can tell me 1.6 million people died in gulags but there is no hazy estimate of how many folks have died in US prisons other than a report for 2001-2014 which hilariously misorders cause of death to downplay homicide and 'missing'.

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[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 1 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago)

I have a post I've copy pasted many times on this topic. While it doesn't answer your question with total numbers it does do a similar comparison.

When ignoring the period of 1941-1944 (nazi occupation of the soviet union and ww2) where 70% of all deaths in gulags occurred, the program actually had an incredibly low death rate for its time. By 1953 the gulag system had a lower death rate than current modern day US prisons have. Fact.

According to this study the gulag deaths were approximately 830,000 from 1934 to 1953. As I said above however, it is important to know that 70% of all these deaths occurred between 1941 and 1944 (included) so they can be attributed to difficulties from the War Period and nazi occupation. Also, it's important to note that antibiotics didn't become available until after WW2, this contributes significantly to earlier higher death figures.

To put things into perspective. Using the same source as above for the USSR, and this report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics we can say that Mortality in the gulag in 1953 (236 deaths per 100,000 prisoners) was lower than mortality in US prisons today, both in state prisons (303 deaths per 100,000 prisoners) and federal prisons (252 deaths per 100,000 prisoners).

Feel free to double check these numbers(you should check anyone's numbers always). I know it's surprising to hear that as far back as 1953 they were better, but it is absolutely correct. I double checked it a bunch too.