At least 2 people have died in custody in American Samoa

How deaths in custody are reported in American Samoa

American Samoa has one adult lockup, the Tafuna Correctional Facility (TCF), often called the Territorial Correctional Facility, and a Juvenile Detention Center.¹² TCF holds people awaiting trial alongside people serving sentences: in 2024 the corrections director reported 303 people held, 199 of them awaiting court hearings.³ The Department of Public Safety ran both facilities through its Corrections Bureau until an executive order of Governor Lemanu Peleti Mauga moved them to a new American Samoa Corrections Agency on July 1, 2022.¹ House Bill 37-39, which the governor approved on December 20, 2022, made the Department of Corrections a department of its own, separate from Public Safety.²

I have found no territorial law that requires deaths in custody to be reported or published, and no list, count or annual report of deaths from the Department of Corrections, the Department of Public Safety or any other office. The territory's plan under the federal Death in Custody Reporting Act, approved by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), names Public Safety, Corrections and the Department of Health as the agencies involved. It promises a central database of deaths in custody, an independent oversight committee "responsible for reviewing all deaths in custody," and "annual reports summarizing deaths in custody, investigation outcomes, and measures taken to prevent future incidents." The four-page plan names no facility, gives no figures, names no office responsible for the work, and sets a 12-month timeline with no start date.⁴⁵ I have found none of the promised reports.

Deaths at TCF become public through the press, chiefly Samoa News, which has reported them from statements by the police commissioner and the warden and from testimony before the Fono, the territorial legislature. None of the reports I have found gave the name of the person who died. Detectives of the Department of Public Safety's Criminal Investigation Division investigate.⁶⁷⁸

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics collected yearly data on deaths from state prison systems from 2001 to 2019; its tables list the 50 states and the federal prisons, and no territory.⁹ Since fiscal 2020, BJA has collected death-in-custody reports from the states and territories. It publishes only tables, with no names, and it hides any count of five or fewer.¹⁰

What has changed

1. 2016On Sunday, September 25, an elderly man held at TCF collapsed in the prison courtyard and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Police Commissioner Save Liuato Tuitele said he had "medical complications" and had been in the hospital several times, and that police did not suspect foul play. His name was not released.⁶
2. 2021Early on Saturday, September 4, a 50-year-old man awaiting trial was found unresponsive in his holding cell at TCF. He had told guards he felt unwell and had been taken to LBJ for a check-up, then sent back to the prison after doctors judged his health normal; his family disagreed over whether he should have been taken to the hospital. Warden Falanaipupu Taase Sagapolutele said his preliminary finding was that there was no sign of foul play, and declined to say more while the death was under investigation.⁷
3. 2022On July 1, TCF and the Juvenile Detention Center moved from the Department of Public Safety to the new American Samoa Corrections Agency.¹ On December 20, the governor approved the law creating an independent Department of Corrections.²
4. 2023On September 7, a young father died by suicide at TCF. Because other rooms were overcrowded, he had been placed in Room 18, where he stayed through a day and a night and was found early the next morning. At a House hearing on September 19, Warden Papalii Marion Fitisemanu told lawmakers, "We made mistakes and we lapsed." Vice Speaker Fetu Fetui said the facility's safety policy for newly admitted people should have been applied, and called the lapse "extremely negligent." The man's name and age were not reported.⁸
5. 2024The Senate Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee reported up to eight people held in cells built for two or three, and cited a Department of Health report describing TCF as unhygienic and unsafe. The corrections director's report counted 303 people held, while a senator counted 209 in the housing buildings and asked why the numbers did not add up.³
6. 2025On August 21, Governor Pulaali'i N. Pula created a Correctional Facility Assessment Task Force, citing recent events at TCF, with a final report due October 31, 2025.¹¹ I have not found the report published.

How far the official numbers can be trusted

There are no official numbers to test. No agency publishes a count or a list, and the annual reports promised in the territory's federal reporting plan have not appeared.⁴ The deaths I know of are the ones that reached the newspaper, reported without names, and I cannot say how many others there have been.⁶⁷⁸ Whatever the territory reports to the federal government is hidden by BJA's rule against publishing counts of five or fewer.¹⁰ The agency's own headcount did not agree with what senators found in the cell blocks in 2024.³