Death rates were 5.9 times higher for previously incarcerated 11- to 21-year-olds in Ohio than in that state’s general population of youth enrolled in Medicaid health insurance for low-income people, according to a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s JAMA Open Network.
In a finding researchers said was especially startling, formerly incarcerated females died at nine times the rate of the general population.
“More than half of all deaths were among youths convicted of crimes against persons,” wrote the researchers, who examined 3,645 formerly incarcerated youth. “More deaths occurred in youths who were incarcerated for the first time and in youths who spent less than or equal to [one] year in custody.”
Overall, 113 youth died from 2017 through 2019, the years for which researchers examined death certificates and other records. Homicide was the leading cause of death for incarcerated youth, accounting for 55.8%, or 63, deaths among the formerly incarcerated. Out of all deaths among the formerly incarcerated, 2.7%, or three, resulted from injuries inflicted by law enforcement officials.
After homicides, deaths from drug overdoses and suicides were the second and third most frequent causes of death.
Formerly incarcerated Black youths were more likely to die by homicide than white youths who had been incarcerated. Previously incarcerated 15- to 21-year-olds were more likely to die than 22- to 29-year-olds, no matter the cause of death.
Of the study’s incarcerated youth, 93.2% were male; 59.1% were Black; 35.9% were white; and 5% were some other race.
Led by an investigator from Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Center for Suicide Prevention and Research, researchers also were from Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center, College of Medicine and College of Social Work; Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center; and Johns Hopkins University.