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The police killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York have prompted an obvious question: how often do people die in interactions with police in the United States? The surprising answer: nobody really knows. Cities and states don’t have to report deaths in police custody – including during arrests – to the federal government, so there’s no centralized database of nationwide numbers.

Without this type of data, it’s impossible to tell who is dying in police custody – and why. Are deaths more common in certain cities or regions? Are they disproportionately of a certain race or ethnicity? If certain states or localities are seeing a large number of deaths during arrests, could this number be reduced by better training?

(The US Department of Justice is supposed to be tracking use of excessive force incidents, but has had little success because it had to rely on self-reporting by state and local law enforcement, which often failed to cooperate with their efforts. Attorney General Eric Holder should beef up the tracking of excessive force incidents.)

The Death in Custody Reporting Act, passed by the US Congress last week, can help. The new law makes a portion of federal funding to state and local law enforcement contingent on states periodically reporting death-in-custody information to the Justice Department. That information includes the race, ethnicity, gender, and age of any person who dies in the process of being arrested, detained, transported, or incarcerated in state and local confinement facilities, as well as a brief description of the circumstances around the person’s death. The law also applies to federal law enforcement and facilities, including immigration detention centers.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed the law unanimously. In applauding the bill’s passage, House sponsor Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia said that death-in-custody data could help to reduce incidences of avoidable deaths, and Senate sponsor Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut spoke to how the act could help “to strengthen trust at every level.”

The problem of avoidable deaths in police custody won’t be solved by data – but it can’t be solved without it. Data that comes from the Death in Custody Reporting Act will shine a light on potential discriminatory treatment by law enforcement, problematic arrest practices, poor conditions, and lack of oversight in jails, prisons, and detention centers, and will inform policies and practices that could help to reduce deaths. It’s a welcome and greatly needed win for transparency and respect for basic rights.

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