New Jersey prison death rate rose as population fell, state watchdog finds

The big picture: New Jersey’s prison watchdog says 336 people died while serving state sentences between 2018 and 2024. The state’s prison population dropped by about one-third during that period.
Why it matters: With overall deaths staying relatively steady, the rate of deaths behind bars rose, and one in seven deaths was from unnatural causes such as overdoses, suicides, homicides, or accidents.
By the numbers: About 83% of deaths were classified as natural; 48 people died of COVID-19; 43% of all deaths were among people housed at South Woods State Prison; two-thirds of all deaths involved people 55 or older.
Key concerns: Most suicides happened in disciplinary housing units, white incarcerated people died at higher rates than Black and Hispanic people, and 15% of those who died had less than a year left before they were scheduled to be released.
What’s next: The New Jersey Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson is urging the state Department of Corrections to use this data to spot trends and publish regular, detailed public reports on deaths in custody.

New Jersey’s state prison population shrank sharply over the last seven years, but the number of people dying behind bars barely budged, meaning incarcerated people are now dying at higher rates, according to a new report from the state’s prison watchdog.

From Jan. 1, 2018, through Dec. 31, 2024, 336 people died while serving state prison terms — an average of 48 deaths per year — the report found. That span includes the COVID-19 pandemic, which the office says was responsible for 14% of all in-custody deaths, nearly all of them in the first two months after the virus reached New Jersey.

The analysis, conducted by investigators from the New Jersey Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson, was released last week. The office provides independent oversight of state prisons and is authorized by law to examine deaths in custody. Investigators reviewed medical examiner investigations into the cause and manner of death for the report, and then layered on data from the New Jersey Department of Corrections about people’s demographics, sentences, housing, and custody status.

This first-of-its-kind report aims to give the public and policymakers a clearer view of who is dying in New Jersey prisons, where and how. The report is critically important because it creates public transparency, leads to “important questions” for prison officials and health care providers, and may draw attention to facilities rife with preventable deaths, Corrections Ombudsperson Terry Schuster wrote.

“Analyzing the reasons and circumstances under which people died in custody may ultimately offer insight into living conditions and the treatment of people in prisons,” Schuster wrote. “Starting with available data about who died, where they died, and what they died from allows the public, as well as policymakers and correctional administrators, to have an initial understanding of the big picture, ask questions, flag concerning trends, and engage in a policy discussion about how to prevent deaths in the future.”

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Most deaths deemed ‘natural,’ but one in seven was not

About 83% of deaths in custody during the seven years were ruled “natural,” meaning they resulted from disease or age rather than an accident, injury, or violent act. The most common natural causes were cardiac disease, cancer, COVID-19, and other respiratory or pulmonary conditions, which together accounted for about two-thirds of all deaths.

Medical examiners also classified a relatively small number of deaths as “undetermined.” For the purposes of the report, those were grouped with natural deaths. The ombudsperson’s office notes that a finding of “natural causes” is not an assessment of the quality of a person’s health care, and that labels such as homicide or accident are medical classifications, not criminal judgments.

Roughly one in every seven deaths in state prisons was an unnatural death, Schuster wrote. Those included 20 overdoses and other drug-related deaths, 13 suicides, six homicides, and eight accidental deaths.

When those cases are broken out by facility, most people who died from overdoses, suicides, homicides, or accidents were housed at Northern State Prison or New Jersey State Prison.

The report highlights particular concerns around suicides: Of the 13 suicide deaths recorded between 2018 and 2024, more than half — 54% — involved people being held in disciplinary housing units. Ten of the 13 were in single cells at the time. Six were age 35 or younger, two were serving life or “virtual life” sentences, and six had less than two years left before their maximum release date.

Population down, deaths steady, rates up

Over the same period, New Jersey’s state prison population fell from more than 19,000 people in 2018 to fewer than 13,000 in 2024. Yet the number of deaths each year stayed relatively steady, except for a spike in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.

Because the population dropped but deaths did not, the rate of deaths per 1,000 incarcerated people rose. For example, the death rate for white incarcerated people increased from 2.9 deaths per 1,000 people in 2018 to 7.2 deaths per 1,000 in 2024. For Hispanic people, the rate rose from 1.3 deaths per 1,000 to 2.7 per 1,000. The rate of deaths for Black people in custody was nearly identical in 2018 and 2024, the report says.

Black incarcerated people died in higher numbers than any other group each year, but white incarcerated people died at the highest rates. Black people made up roughly 60% of the state prison population and about half of the deaths in prison each year. White people accounted for about 20% to 22% of the population, but 37% of all deaths between 2018 and 2024. Hispanic people made up 14% to 16% of the population and 13% of deaths.

South Woods accounts for nearly half of all deaths

Deaths in custody were not evenly distributed across the prison system.

Of the 336 people who died, 146 — 43% — were housed at South Woods State Prison. South Woods is the state’s largest prison and the only one equipped with an Extended Care Unit designed for end-of-life and other advanced nursing care, which likely contributes to its higher share of deaths.

Other facilities with notable death counts include Northern State Prison and New Jersey State Prison, particularly in cases involving overdoses, suicides, homicides, and accidental deaths.

About one-third of all people who died were housed in the department’s Extended Care Unit. Nearly everyone else was housed in general population units, which the report defines to include gang minimum, medium, and maximum custody classifications but not full minimum camps, residential community placements, or close-custody settings.

Overall, 86% of those who died were classified as being in the general population. Six percent were in close custody, including disciplinary or protective custody units and other restrictive settings. Another 6% were in full minimum custody, and 2% were in Residential Community Reintegration Programs.

Older, but not always lifelong, prisoners

About two-thirds of those who died were over 55, mirroring national statistics. About a third were receiving end-of-life or advanced nursing care.

Between 2018 and 2024, nine people age 25 or younger died in New Jersey state prisons. Eight of those nine deaths were classified as unnatural. The Department of Corrections can house people as young as 18. The youngest person to die in state custody during the period covered by the report was 20.

Most people sentenced to prison in New Jersey are not serving life terms, and that is reflected in who died. Thirty percent of deaths in custody occurred among people serving life or “virtual life” sentences, which the report defines as a sentence with a projected release at age 90 or older.

Roughly the same share of deaths involved people with one to five years left to serve. Fifteen percent of those who died in custody had less than one year remaining before their maximum sentence expiration date. Another 23% had more than five years left.

Most died in hospitals, not cells

According to the report, two-thirds of those who died while serving state sentences were in a hospital when they died. Eighteen percent were in the department’s Extended Care Unit or another prison infirmary. The remaining 17% died in nonmedical prison settings.

Nearly everyone who died of COVID-19 while incarcerated was in a hospital or other clinical setting at the time of death, the ombudsperson’s office found.

Watchdog calls for regular, public reporting

The Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson argues that making this kind of data public is critical to understanding what is happening behind prison walls and to preventing future deaths.

The office recommends that the Department of Corrections use its own data to identify trends and begin producing regular public reports on deaths in custody, including context about individuals’ time left to serve, housing and custody classification, and whether they died in medical or nonmedical settings.

The ombudsperson is inviting lawmakers, advocates, incarcerated people, and their families to scrutinize the findings and suggest areas for deeper inquiry, noting that this is the office’s first report on deaths in custody.

The state Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment about the report on Dec. 19.

But Schuster has urged the agency to use the data his office collected to spot trends and build public reports about in-custody deaths that include where, when, and how people died, as well as the causes and circumstances of those deaths.

“The Ombudsperson’s Office is happy to assist with those future analyses,” he wrote.