0 people, most recent first. Choose a name, or a dot on the map.
One mark per person, by the year they died. Choose the box at the side to see every decade. Coverage is uneven: recent deaths come mostly from local news since 2000, older ones from official lists and historical newspapers, so the shape shows what was recorded as much as how many people died.
New York Correction Law section 47 requires the administrator of every correctional facility in the state to report the death of an incarcerated person to the State Commission of Correction.1 The Commission's Medical Review Board investigates deaths in state prisons, county jails, New York City jails and police lockups, and posts redacted reports naming each person and the date of death.2 Not every death gets a report: in 2024, 181 deaths were reported to the Commission, which issued 61 investigation reports and closed 71 other cases administratively as natural or expected deaths.3
The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, which runs the state prisons, publishes a yearly mortality report counting deaths by prison and by manner of death, including deaths in outside hospitals.4 Since December 19, 2025, Correction Law section 624 has also required it to post a notice of each death on its website within 48 hours of telling the family.5 The notices give the person's name, date of birth, department identification number, date of death and the prison where they were housed, but no cause or place of death.6 Under County Law section 677, the county coroner or medical examiner decides whether an autopsy is released, and the department reports only the manner of death recorded in its unusual incident system.4
Since April 1, 2021, Executive Law section 70-b has directed the Attorney General's Office of Special Investigation to investigate any death that a police or peace officer may have caused. Because correction officers in every jail and prison are peace officers, the office investigates or assesses every death in a state prison.7 Its data tables list each death it was notified of, with the person's name, age, race, gender, the agency involved and whether the person was incarcerated.8
In New York City, the Department of Correction runs the jails on Rikers Island and in the boroughs. Local Law 105 of 2025 requires it to post a notice of each death, with the person's name, age, race, gender and facility, within 24 hours of notifying the family, and requires the Board of Correction to investigate deaths and post its reports.9 The Board publishes reports naming the people who died.10 For the federal Death in Custody Reporting Act, the Commission of Correction and the state prison department report deaths to the Division of Criminal Justice Services, which has no dedicated website for the data.1
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement publishes a report on each death in its custody.11 Its list for 2003 to 2017 includes Irene Bamenga, who died on July 27, 2011, while held in the Albany County Jail, and Santo Carela, who died on July 28, 2016, while held in the Orange County Jail.12 Santos Reyes Banegas died on September 18, 2025, while held for ICE at the Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow.13
The prison department counts every death in its custody, including in outside hospitals: 137 deaths in 2021, 113 in 2022, 107 in 2023, 144 in 2024 and 130 in 2025.4 The manner of death in them is preliminary and changes as autopsy reports arrive, so each year's report revises earlier years. In the 2025 report, 15 of the year's deaths were still listed as unknown.4 Before 2020, overdoses were counted as accidents, and before 2024, undetermined deaths were counted as unknown.4
The department's counts run slightly higher than those it reported to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, for example 113 against 112 for 2019, in records it released to the UCLA Law Behind Bars project.1920 Those records list 143 deaths for 2024, one fewer than the department's own 2025 report.194
Jail deaths are harder to follow. The Commission of Correction investigates only some deaths and closes others without a report, and it cannot complete an investigation until it has the autopsy report and the Attorney General's office has reviewed the death. Its posted reports cover deaths from 2018 onward.32 New York City's open data set called "Inmate Deaths" is described as covering non-natural deaths, but its 22 records, from 2015 to 2024, are all suicides.21 In June 2023 the city's Department of Correction abruptly stopped notifying the public of deaths in its jails;22 Local Law 105 of 2025 made such notices mandatory.9