“Death in Custody: How America Ignores the Truth and What We Can Do About It” was recently published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book is built on the understanding that the United States significantly undercounts the number of individuals who die while in law enforcement custody each year. Custody is the broad term for individuals who die during an encounter with police on the street, during transport, or while in jails, prisons, or detention centers.

The authors, Dr. Roger A. Mitchell and Jay D. Aronson, demonstrate how government officials at all levels have intentionally avoided producing an accurate count of how many people die in custody. They argue that this ignorance is obscuring a public health crisis that must be addressed systematically. Mitchell and Aronson offer straightforward solutions that are relatively easy to implement—once there is political will to do so.Dr. Mitchell is Chair of Pathology at Howard University College of Medicine and served as Chief Medical Examiner of Washington, DC from 2014-2021. Aronson is Professor of Science, Technology, and Society in the History Department at Carnegie Mellon University, where he founded and directs the Center for Human Rights Science.

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