One of the things that our government is pretty good about is keeping track of things.  And Gideon found in his email yesterday (amongst other things) an email announcing a “special report presents the first findings from the law enforcement collection of the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP).” I didn’t even know there was a DCRP.

This special report is, well, special indeed.  It has collected information about deaths in police custody from “over 40 states,” meaning that the pair of statisticians adding up the subject decided to call it quits when they hit the last pinkie.  Highlights of the report are:

Homicides by law enforcement officers made up 55% (1,095) of all deaths during arrests by State and local agencies. Eleven homicides were committed by other persons present at the scene.

No other cause of death was reported half as often as homicide. Drug and alcohol intoxication accounted for 13% of all deaths, followed by suicides (12%), accidental injuries (7%), and illness or natural causes (6%).

Three-quarters of the law enforcement homicides reported to DCRP involved arrests for a violent crime. Except for suicides (51%), violent offenders were involved in less than 30% of all other causes of death. Public-order offenders accounted for 8% of homicides, followed by property (4%) and drug offenders (2%).