by Michael Lyle
The rising number of deaths in Nevada prisons drew scrutiny from state lawmakers, whose corrections officials said Tuesday that 166 people have died in custody since 2024.
There were at least 98 deaths — the largest share of the total — during that two-and-a-half-year period attributed to natural causes, Nevada Department of Corrections officials told lawmakers at this week’s Interim Judiciary Committee meeting.
The paucity of data raises questions about causes of death, factors at play, how Nevada prison death data compares to other states, and efforts to reduce the numbers.
“I think I was expecting a little more forceful presentation from you,” said Democratic state Sen. Melanie Scheible, who chaired the committee. “I may not have my finger on the pulse of what’s happening in custody across the country, but that sounds like a lot of deaths to me.”
NDOC Director James Jurenda could not provide the information at the time but told lawmakers that the department would work to obtain that information and “compare them with comparable states.”
76 incarcerated people died in Nevada prisons last year, which is projected to be 55 in 2024.
There have been 35 custodial deaths so far this year during the presentation, officials said.
In addition to the 98 deaths attributed to natural causes in the last two-and-a-half years, 25 deaths were ruled accidental, 18 were determined to be homicides, 13 were ruled suicides and 12 cases were still pending.
The cause of death is determined to be accidental when the deaths are not the result of homicide, natural causes or suicide, said Donald Southward, chief of criminal management with NDOC, adding examples could be “accidental overdose” or taking the wrong medication.
“It sounds like a lot of unexplained deaths to me,” says Scheible, “if we throw a lot of them into this category of accidents, which we’ve just learned that things like drug overdoses are not happening, but can happen, and the left hand isn’t talking to the right hand about whether or not the perpetrators are taking the right medication.”
Recently the US Department of Justice Report Tracks deaths in state and federal prisons, but only from 2000 to 2019. However, the report collected data last year showing 34 deaths in Nevada prisons.
The number of people who died in Nevada prisons was the highest in those two decades, with 47 in both 2015 and 2017, the report said.
Democratic Assemblymember Brittany Miller asked NDOC officials how Nevada’s data compared to states with comparable incarceration populations.
Natural death, he said, “can also be a question about health care and other things,” Miller said.
“I’m not going to ask you what you think is acceptable,” she said. “I’m asking, compared to other states with the same inmate population, what is their average death rate per year?”
These were among questions for which NDOC said answers were not readily available.
Republican Assembly member Alexis Hansen also asked if barriers to access to health care contribute to the large number of people who die while incarcerated.
Like Nevada in general, which has a statewide shortage of health care providers, prisons have not been able to recruit or retain medical staff, said Ken Williams, NDOC’s medical director.
NDOC’s job is to “keep people safe while they’re in custody,” Scheible said. “What metrics do you use to determine if you are achieving adequate security metrics?”
Jurenda attributed the rise in deaths to an increase in the “drug trade” within prisons and the “use of synthetic drugs in the prison system”.
“We’re looking at the trends that are happening with the increase in violence and why,” Jurenda said “There has been a significant increase in the number of drugs related to our murders, fights, assaults, overdoses and deaths.”
NDOC, he added, is looking at measures to prevent drug use.
The department proposed restricting mail from entering the facility. The proposal has faced push back from prisoner advocacy and Criminal Justice Reform GroupThose who question the reliability of an NDOC study on drug entry into prisons through the mail.
Officials also pointed to addressing the system’s staffing shortage as a solution to help reduce deaths. The department plans to submit recommendations in the next legislative session to provide additional funding to fill the vacancies.
Nevada Current Part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. The Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact editor Hugh Jackson with questions: (email protected).
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republished With permission from Nevada Current
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Photo credit: Michael Lyle/Nevada Current
