TJI Blog
Where the TJI team posts blogs about our data, publications, analyses, and code.
2021 Deaths in Custody decline from previous year
May 24, 2022The good news*: the number of people who died in the custody of Texas law enforcement went down in 2021
after peaking the previous year. The bad news: 2021's total — 906 deaths, according to reports filed with the
state of Texas through May 1, 2022 — was still higher than every other year but 2020. Deaths in cu... Read moreCOVID-19 drives spike in deaths in Texas prisons and jails in 2020
December 22, 2021According to custodial death data, 2020 was the deadliest year on record for people who were incarcerated in
Texas prisons and jails (see graph above). At least 830 individuals died in Texas prisons and jails, an increase of
46% over the previous year (2019), based on reports filed with the Texas Office of the Attorney Ge... Read moreCOVID-19 data scant during Delta variant wave
October 4, 2021For months, Texas has been battling the highly contagious Delta strain of the
coronavirus. After a surge in the beginning of 2021, deaths due to COVID-19 were
somewhat low in the spring – but then they started to climb. And despit... Read more
Join Our Team
July 27, 2021TJI functions thanks to talented volunteers who work collaboratively to build and maintain our website and data
tools. Our team meets weekly – remotely and, when volunteers in Austin are comfortable doing so again,
in-person – and keep in touch during the week on Slack and email. We are lucky to have consisten... Read moreTexas Attorney General’s Sites for Death and Shooting Reports Go Dark
June 15, 2021For six weeks this spring, the Texas Office of the Attorney General’s websites that house reports on
officer-involved shootings and deaths in custody were malfunctioning, cutting off access to records that detail
important (and often lethal) interactions between civilians and law enforcement. Every week, law e... Read more
12