U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Bureau of Justice Statistics

TECHNICAL REPORT December 2016, NCJ 250112

Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 

2015–16: Preliminary Findings

Duren Banks, Ph.D., Paul Ruddle, and Erin Kennedy, RTI International

Michael G. Planty, Ph.D., BJS Statistician

Revised December 22, 2016

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Jun 15 Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan 16 Feb Mar

87

154

138 144

119

156

128

141

149

Number of deaths 

132

Figure 1

Potential arrest-related deaths identified through 

open source review, June 2015–March 2016

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign 

Study, 2015–16.

Introduction

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has maintained the 

Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) program since 2003. BJS 

developed the ARD program in response to the Death in 

Custody Reporting Act (DICRA) of 2000 (P.L. 106-297) and 

designed it to be a census of all deaths that occur during the 

process of arrest or during an attempt to obtain custody by 

a state or local law enforcement agency in the United States 

(see text box, Deaths reportable to the Arrest-Related Deaths 

program). The ARD program is a component of BJS’s Deaths 

in Custody Program (DCRP), which has also collected data 

on inmate deaths that have occurred in the custody of local 

jail or state prison since 2000. 

BJS released two reports on the number, characteristics, 

and circumstances of arrest-related deaths occurring in 

the United States between 2003 and 2009.1 BJS has also 

assessed and updated the methods used to identify arrestrelated deaths and collect information about decedents and 

the circumstances surrounding those deaths. In 2010, for 

example, the ARD program began to rely more on open 

information sources, such as media stories, to identify 

arrest-related deaths, rather than relying solely on law 

enforcement agencies to identify and report these deaths.2

BJS also conducted an assessment of the ARD program’s 

coverage in 2014.3 Based on findings from the program 

assessment, BJS launched a redesign of the ARD program 

in June 2015 to include multiple methods of identifying 

and confirming arrest-related deaths. The revised ARD 

program methodology is designed to increase the reliability, 

validity, and comprehensiveness of the data collection. A 

key feature of the redesigned data collection process is a 

standardized review of media articles to identify potential 

1 See Arrest-Related Deaths, 2003–2009 - Statistical Tables (NCJ 235385, 

BJS web, November 2011) and Arrest-Related Deaths in the United States, 

2003–2005 (NCJ 219534, BJS web, October 2007).

2 See Arrest-Related Deaths Program: Data Quality Profile (NCJ 248544, 

BJS web, March 2015).

3 See Arrest-Related Deaths Program Assessment: Technical Report

(NCJ 248543, BJS web, March 2015).

arrest-related deaths. This review is followed by a survey of 

law enforcement agencies and medical examiner/coroners’ 

(ME/C) offices for official reports and information about the 

arrest-related death.

This report describes the redesign methods, findings from 

the media reviews conducted from June 2015 through 

March 2016, and preliminary results from the agency survey 

to collect more information about deaths identified in June, 

July, and August 2015. 

Media reviews identified 1,348 potential arrest-related 

deaths in the United States from June 1, 2015 through 

March 31, 2016 (figure 1). With the exception of June, 

the number of deaths was fairly consistent across months, 

ranging from 87 to 156 arrest-related deaths—an average of 

135 deaths per month.

BJS conducted a survey to confirm and collect more 

information about the 379 deaths that were identified 

in June, July, and August 2015. The survey asked law 
Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 2015–16: Preliminary Findings | December 2016 2

Deaths reportable to the Arrest-Related 

Deaths program

 All deaths attributed to any use of force by law 

enforcement personnel acting in an official agency 

capacity.

 Any death that occurs while the decedent’s freedom to 

leave is restricted by a state or local law enforcement 

agency prior to, during, or following an arrest, which 

includes—

• while detained for questioning

• during the process of apprehension

• while in the custody of, or shortly after restraint 

by, law enforcement (even if the decedent was not 

formally under arrest)

• during transport to or from law enforcement or 

medical facilities.

 Any death that occurs while confined in lockups or 

booking centers.

enforcement agencies and ME/C offices to confirm or deny 

those potential arrest-related deaths and to identify other 

deaths meeting the ARD program scope that were not 

identified through media review. Preliminary survey findings 

indicate 425 arrest-related deaths occurred in the United 

States from June to August 2015. Using information captured 

from media sources from June 2015 through May 2016 and 

assuming another 12% identified directly from agencies, an 

estimated 1,900 arrest-related deaths occurred.

Arrest-Related Deaths program redesign

The DICRA of 2000 expired in 2006, although BJS continued 

to maintain the ARD program until 2014, at which time BJS 

suspended data collection efforts to assess the program’s ability 

to capture all relevant incidents. The program assessment 

found that the ARD program captured about half of the 

estimated number of justifiable homicides in the United 

States from 2003 through 2011, excluding 2010.4 In general, 

the incomplete coverage each year was due in part to the 

unstandardized data collection process across states. However, 

program coverage increased to a high of 69% in 2011, when 

the program began to rely more on open information sources 

to identify potentially eligible deaths. 

The DICRA of 2013 (P.L. 113-242) was reauthorized in 

December 2014 and requires any state receiving funds from 

the Department of Justice to report information on a quarterly 

basis regarding the death of any person who is detained, 

under arrest, in the process of being arrested, en route to be 

incarcerated, or incarcerated. BJS has been developing new 

methodologies to identify the full scope of arrest-related deaths 

identified by the DICRA of 2013 and to collect information 

about those deaths through the ARD program redesign study.

The ARD program redesign data collection methodology 

includes two phases to maximize agency participation and data 

completeness. During the first phase, BJS identified potential 

arrest-related deaths through review of open information 

sources, including news outlets, official agency documents, and 

other publicly available information. During the second phase, 

BJS conducted a survey of law enforcement agencies and 

ME/C offices. BJS surveyed the state and local agencies with 

jurisdiction over the potential arrest-related deaths identified 

in phase one and a selected group of agencies where no death 

was identified.

This hybrid approach was designed to address two primary 

obstacles to compiling accurate and reliable information 

from media sources. First, a huge amount of information is 

4 See Assessment of Coverage in the Arrest-Related Deaths Program

(NCJ 249099, BJS web, October 2015).

available from open sources that must be reviewed, which 

carries associated cost and time resources. This obstacle was 

addressed through a process of automated article reduction, 

coding, and classification. Second, the reliability and accuracy 

of various media sources was unknown and in many cases 

limited to a few pieces of information about the event. As a 

result, any information about the decedent and circumstances 

surrounding the death must be collected and verified through 

official sources. This obstacle was addressed through the 

agency survey.

The redesigned ARD program study will enable BJS to— 

 confirm whether potential arrest-related deaths identified 

through open information source review meet the ARD 

program definition and scope 

 identify any additional arrest-related deaths that BJS did not 

identify during the open information source review 

 collect additional information about the decedent and the 

circumstances surrounding the incident for all confirmed 

arrest-related deaths.

For the purposes of the ARD program, a death is defined as 

arrest-related when (1) the death results from police use of 

force or (2) the event causing the death (e.g., self-inflicted 

injury, cardiac arrest, fall from a height, and drowning) occurs 

while the decedent’s freedom to leave is restricted by a law 

enforcement agency.
Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 2015–16: Preliminary Findings | December 2016 3

Figure 2

Arrest-Related Deaths program redesign study coding and classification process

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 2015–16.

1. Mediaalerts

Deadlyforce Law enforcement

Arrest

Police

Shooting

Heartattack

Wrongfuldeath

In custody

2. Event listener

3. Textprocessing

Exactduplicates Untrusteddomains

Localdatabase 5. Text similarity detector

7. Manual coding

6. Relevancy classier 

4. External text retrieval service

Redesign phase 1: media review methods and findings

BJS set up a series of media alerts designed to capture the 

full scope of arrest-related deaths. The alerts return articles 

that include one or more of several primary search terms 

in proximity to other text that indicates state or local law 

enforcement personnel acting in an official agency capacity. 

The primary search terms included text variations of shot, 

killed, death, standoff, Taser, use of force, accidental, overdose, 

and heart attack. Law enforcement proximity words included 

text variations of police, officers, custody, and arrest.

A data pipeline was built to manage the large volume of data 

returned through the media alerts and reduce the number 

of articles that needed to be manually coded by reviewers 

(figure 2). An external media monitoring provider was used 

to obtain URLs, titles, and short descriptions of articles that 

matched alerts of interest. Some sources (e.g., reddit.com, 

craigslist.com, and tumblr.com) were determined to be either 

unreliable sources of information on arrest-related deaths or 

returned information not relevant to the ARD program scope. 

Articles from such sources were excluded. Returned articles that 

corresponded to duplicate web addresses were also excluded.

An external text retrieval service was then used to retrieve 

article text associated with each URL. Modern natural 

language processing techniques were used to identify articles 

that are similar to each other and exclude such similar 

articles from further classification and coding. Similarity was 

determined on the basis of whole text similarity and similarity 

of the entities (e.g., people, places, and things) automatically 

extracted from an article.

Machine learning classifiers were developed to identify 

articles that were likely to provide information related to an 

arrest-related death. Information from approximately 150,000 

articles, which were manually reviewed and coded, was used to 

train logistic regression and decision tree classifiers. Classifiers 

were combined to maximize predictive power. Articles 

were weighted to protect against developing a classifier that 

identified arrest-related deaths covered widely in the media 

but failed to identify arrest-related deaths mentioned in a 

few articles. During model building, articles that identified a 

decedent found in a small number of articles were weighted 

higher than articles that identified a decedent found in 

many articles. Between June 2015 and June 2016, more than 

2 million articles were classified using this approach.

Following the classification process, approximately 250,000 

media articles with a higher likelihood of providing relevant 

information were manually coded to determine if they 

identified a potential arrest-related death. The vast majority 

of articles (83%, not shown in table) were associated with the 

primary search terms of shooting, shot, killed, death, or dead.
Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 2015–16: Preliminary Findings | December 2016 4

0

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10

15

20

25

30

35

40

1 2 3 4–10 11–20 21–100 101 or more

18

11 9

36

15

9

2

Percent of deaths

Number of articles

Figure 3

Percent of potential arrest-related deaths identified 

through open source review, by number of articles per 

decedent, June 2015–March 2016

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 

2015–16.

WA

NV

MO

MN

MD UT

KS CO

NE

SD

ND

WY

MT

DC

DE

VA KY

OH IN

PA

LA

AR

WI

OK

TX

NM AZ

CA

OR

IL

NY

MI

RI

CT

ME

NH

VT

NC TN

AL MS GA

IA

ID

FL

SC

WV

AK

HI

25–32

2–7

8–15

16–24

33–224

Arrest related deaths

MA

NJ

Figure 4

Number of potential arrest-related deaths 

identified through open source review, by state, 

June 2015–March 2016

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 

2015–16.

Each article was reviewed to determine if it identified a death 

that appeared to meet the ARD program scope. For these 

potential arrest-related deaths, reviewers then recorded the 

name of the decedent, incident location, date of death, and the 

primary law enforcement agency or agencies involved. The 

list of decedents was then re-reviewed to remove duplicate 

references to the same decedent and to follow up on any 

records with incomplete information. The resulting list of 

unique decedents was further compared to existing open 

source lists with overlapping scope (see text box, Arrest-Related 

Deaths program scope).

Among the reviewed articles, an average of 8% of articles 

identified a potential arrest-related death (not shown). 

From June 2015 through March 2016, 18% of the potential 

arrest-related deaths were identified through one article, while 

2% of the potential deaths were referenced in more than 100 

articles (figure 3).

An open source review of articles published from June 2015 

through March 2016 identified potential arrest-related deaths 

in all 50 states (figure 4). California had the largest number of 

potential arrest-related deaths identified during this period, 

although the District of Columbia, Wyoming, and New Mexico 

had the highest rate of potential arrest-related deaths per 

Arrest-Related Deaths program scope

In addition to direct media alerts, BJS consulted existing 

open source lists of deaths with scopes that overlapped 

with the ARD program, including lists maintained by Fatal 

Encounters, The Guardian, Killed by Police, Gun Violence Archive,

and The Washington Post (table 1). Of these, Fatal Encounters

most closely matched the ARD program scope. Killed by Police

included deaths associated with off-duty police officers who 

are not acting in an official agency capacity, and the ARD 

program excludes such deaths.

Table 1

Arrest-Related Deaths program scope compared 

to other sources, by manner of death, 

June 2015–March 2016

Data source Shooting

Other use 

of force Accident Suicide

Natural 

cause

ARD program x x x x x

Fatal Encountersa x x x x x

Killed by Policeb x x x x

The Countedc x x x 

Gun Violence Archived x x

National Police 

 Shootings Databasee x ahttp://www.fatalencounters.org/

bhttp://killedbypolice.net/

cMaintained by The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/nginteractive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database

dhttp://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

eMaintained by The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/

graphics/national/police-shootings/ 

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign 

Study, 2015–16.
Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 2015–16: Preliminary Findings | December 2016 5

Arrest-Related Deaths program incident 

form measures

Form CJ-11A

Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) Arrest-Related Death 

Incident Report

1. Identifying information

- LEA involved

- State

- Decedent name

- Date/time of death

2. Location of incident

3. Decedent demographics

4. Precipitating events

- Reason for initial contact

- Did decedent commit or allegedly commit any crimes

5. Decedent behavior during incident

- Barricade, threaten, assault, escape, etc.

- Exhibit mental health problems or appear to be intoxicated

- Possess or appear to possess a weapon

- Use a weapon to threaten or assault

- Attempt to injure officers or others

6. Law enforcement actions during incident

- Engage in pursuit or restraint tactics

- Use of force

- If firearm discharged, how many shots fired

- Number of officers and LEAs that responded to incident

Form CJ-12A

Medical Examiner/Coroner’s Office Arrest-Related Death 

Incident Report

1. Identifying information

- State

- Decedent name

- Date/time of death

2. Location of incident

3. Decedent demographics

4. Whether autopsy was performed

5. Manner of death

6. Cause of death

7. If died from injuries, how were those injuries sustained

8. If weapon caused death, what type of weapon

million residents. In some states with very high rates, such 

as Wyoming, the estimated rate is based on a low number of 

deaths. New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island had the lowest 

rates of potential arrest-related deaths per million residents 

compared to other states (figure 5).

Redesign phase 2: survey methods and findings

The ARD program survey was distributed to the chief 

executive in each state and local law enforcement agency 

that was involved with the 379 potential arrest-related deaths 

that occurred from June to August 2015, as well as the chief 

medical examiner or coroner with concurrent jurisdiction over 

those deaths. Each survey respondent was asked to confirm 

or deny each potential arrest-related death identified through 

media review and identify any other deaths that met the ARD 

program scope and occurred during the same time frame. For 

all confirmed deaths, the agency was then asked to complete an 

incident form.

The law enforcement agency incident form (Form CJ-11A) 

requests information about the decedent, the reason the law 

enforcement agency was involved with the decedent, actions 

the decedent took during the incident, and actions the law 

enforcement agency took during the incident. The ME/C 

office incident form (Form CJ-12A) also includes decedent 

characteristics and the cause and manner of death (see text 

box, ARD Program Incident Form Measures).

WA

NV

MO

MN

MD UT

KS

CO

NE

SD

ND

WY

MT

DC KY

OH IN

PA

LA

AR

WI

OK

TX

NM AZ

CA

OR

IL

NY

MI CT

ME

NH

VT

NC TN

AL MS GA

IA

ID

FL

SC

WV

AK

VA

HI

5.82–6.51

1.52–2.64

2.65–3.58

3.59–4.81

6.52–13.65

Rate of deaths per

million U.S. residents

DE

RI

MA

NJ

Figure 5

Rate of potential arrest-related deaths 

identified through open source review, by state, 

June 2015–March 2016

Note: Estimated rates are based on less than 10 deaths in Alaska, Connecticut, 

District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, New 

Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 

2015–16.
Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 2015–16: Preliminary Findings | December 2016 6

Table 2

Agency-level survey response for deaths identified in June–August 2015

All deaths LEAa ME/Cb office

Agency responding on behalf 

of both LEA and ME/C office

Survey response Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent

Total 486 100% 265 100% 142 100% 79 100%

None 118 24.3% 75 28.3% 39 27.5% 4 5.1%

Yes 368 75.7% 190 71.7% 103 72.5% 75 94.9%

Agency completed all expected 

incident forms 351 72.2 185 69.8 95 66.9 71 89.9

Agency did not complete all expected 

incident forms 17 3.5 5 1.9 8 5.6 4 5.1

Note: State-level points of contact provided data on behalf of all LEAs in Arizona, Texas, and Maryland, and for all ME/C offices in states with a centralized medical examiner 

system.

aLaw enforcement agency.

bMedical examiner/coroners’ office. 

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, June–August 2015.

Table 3

Decedent-level survey response for deaths identified in June–August 2015

All identified deaths Media-identified deaths

Survey response Number Percent Percent 

Totala 427 100% ~

Media-identified deaths 379 88.8% 100%

Confirmed 298 69.8% 78.6%

By both LEAb and ME/Cc office 208 48.7 54.9

By LEA only 49 11.5 12.9

By ME/C office only 41 9.6 10.8

Deniedd 60 14.1% 15.8%

By LEA and ME/C office (person not deceased) 2 0.5 0.5

By one agency, and no response from other agency 26 6.1 6.9

Conflicting response from LEA and ME/C office 32 7.5 8.4

No response from LEA and ME/C office 21 4.9% 5.5%

Agency-reported deathsa 48 11.2% ~

Confirmed through media review 14 3.3 ~

Retained, no media record found 34 8.0 ~

Decedents with at least one incident form completed 375 87.8% ~

Full incident response 232 54.6 ~

LEA response only 67 15.8 ~

ME/C office response only 76 17.9 ~

~Not applicable.

aExcludes agency-reported deaths that duplicated media-identified deaths, were identified as out of scope, or were identified but did not include incident information to 

confirm that death was in scope. Efforts were made to verify all agency-reported deaths through additional media searches. Any deaths not found in media searches were 

retained for further analysis unless exclusionary criteria were otherwise identified (e.g., out of date scope).

bLaw enforcement agency.

cMedical examiner/coroners’ office.

dTwo potential arrest-related deaths were denied because the individual identified was not deceased, and they were removed from further analyses. Follow-up research on the 

remaining 26 denied decedents did not conclude that they were in fact, out of ARD program scope, and they were retained in further analyses.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, June–August 2015.

In most states, separate surveys were sent to the law 

enforcement agencies and the local ME/C offices involved 

in the death. Respondents in Arizona, California, Maryland, 

and Texas provided information on behalf of both the law 

enforcement agencies and ME/C offices due to centralized 

reporting requirements already in place in those states. From 

June to August 2015, a total of 486 agencies were surveyed, 

with 75% providing some response and 72% providing a 

complete response, including full incident forms for all 

confirmed decedents (table 2). The response was approximately 

the same for both law enforcement and ME/C offices. While 

the response rates for agencies reached 75%, a low response 

was expected given the short response window and follow-up 

period. Many of these incidents were open investigations at 

the time of data collection or had other matters standing, such 

as civil cases. More time to allow these cases to close, coupled 

with more aggressive nonresponse follow-up strategies, could 

yield higher participation rates.

Of the 379 potential arrest-related deaths identified through 

media sources for the agency survey from June through August 

2015, 79% were confirmed by at least one survey respondent 

and 55% were confirmed by both the law enforcement agency 

and ME/C office involved (table 3).
Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 2015–16: Preliminary Findings | December 2016 7

Table 4

Number of deaths according to the Arrest-Related 

Deaths program, by state, June–August 2015

State All deaths

Media-identified 

deaths

Agency-reported 

deaths

Total 425 377 48

Alabama 8 8 0

Arkansas 1 1 0

Arizona 10 9 1

California 64 60 4

Colorado 7 7 0

Connecticut 2 2 0

Florida 25 25 0

Georgia 14 12 2

Hawaii 2 2 0

Iowa 2 2 0

Idaho 2 2 0

Illinois 11 8 3

Indiana 10 10 0

Kansas 6 6 0

Kentucky 11 10 1

Louisiana 7 7 0

Massachusetts 6 5 1

Maryland 4 3 1

Maine 5 1 4

Michigan 5 5 0

Minnesota 3 3 0

Missouri 12 6 6

Mississippi 3 3 0

Montana 1 1 0

North Carolina 10 10 0

Nebraska 1 1 0

New Hampshire 1 1 0

New Jersey 8 8 0

New Mexico 8 7 1

Nevada 10 9 1

New York 11 11 0

Ohio 16 12 4

Oklahoma 10 10 0

Oregon 7 7 0

Pennsylvania 13 12 1

South Carolina 7 7 0

Tennessee 8 8 0

Texas 58 43 15

Utah 6 6 0

Virginia 7 7 0

Washington 11 8 3

Wisconsin 5 5 0

West Virginia 4 4 0

Wyoming 3 3 0

Note: States not shown in table had no media-identified deaths in June, July, or 

August, 2015.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 

June–August 2015.

Sixty deaths were denied by at least one agency, with more than 

half (32) of those deaths denied by one agency but confirmed 

by another. The most common reason for denying a potential 

arrest-related death was because the agency surveyed had no 

record of the decedent (N = 24, 40% of all denied deaths). 

The second most common reason was because the agency 

reported that the potential decedent was in the custody of 

another agency (N = 15, 25% of denied deaths). Approximately 

15 deaths were denied because the agency did not agree that 

the death met the ARD program scope. Follow-up review of 

publicly available information showed that these deaths meet 

the ARD program scope and included suicides and accidents 

that occurred during police pursuit. Two deaths were denied 

by both the law enforcement agency and ME/C office involved, 

who indicated in both cases that the potential decedent was 

not deceased. These two deaths were removed from further 

analysis. The remaining denied cases were researched further, 

and no information was identified that excluded these cases 

from the ARD program scope, so they were retained for 

further analyses.

In addition to reviewing the list of deaths BJS identified from 

open source review, agencies were asked to report any other 

deaths that met the ARD program scope and occurred in 

their jurisdiction from June to August 2015. Agency-reported 

deaths determined to be out of ARD program scope, either 

because they occurred outside of the survey period, occurred 

in the custody of local jail or state prison, or otherwise did not 

meet ARD program criteria, were excluded from the analysis 

(not shown in table). Forty-eight deaths were reported by 

agency respondents and retained in the ARD program analysis. 

Through follow-up media review, 14 of these agency-reported 

deaths were confirmed to meet the ARD program scope. A 

media record of the remaining 34 agency-reported deaths was 

not located.

Media reviews and agency surveys together identified a 

total of 425 arrest-related deaths that occurred from June to 

August 2015, excluding the two persons determined not to 

be deceased. Among the total deaths, 88% or 375 decedents 

had an incident form completed by either a law enforcement 

agency or ME/C office. Forty-four states had at least one death 

in the 3 month period, with three states accounting for 35% 

of the total—California (64), Texas (58), and Florida (25) 

(table 4).

Twelve percent of the 425 deaths in June, July and August 

2015 were reported by agency respondents and not initially 

identified through media searches. Based on deaths identified 

from open source information review from June 2015 to May 

2016 and assuming an additional 12% identified by agencies, 

there were an estimated 1,900 arrest-related deaths.
Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 2015–16: Preliminary Findings | December 2016 8

Manner of death was determined for decedents with a 

completed ME/C office incident form (N = 300) or imputed 

from open source information when the item was missing 

(N = 125). Of all deaths occurring in June, July, and 

August 2015, 64% were homicides, 18% were suicides, and 

11% were accidents (table 5).

Conclusions 

A key component to the Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) 

program redesign study is the standardized mixed method, 

hybrid approach that does not rely solely on media sources 

or voluntary reporting from law enforcement agencies to 

identify and provide information about arrest-related deaths. 

Arrest-related homicides are often reported in the media and 

included in other open source existing lists, while deaths due 

to suicide, accident, and other manners of death are also within 

the scope of the ARD program and may be identified less often 

in publicly available information sources. Information on the 

circumstances surrounding all manners of arrest-related deaths 

death—including homicides, suicides, accidents, and deaths 

due to natural causes—may inform law enforcement training 

and policies. Furthermore, information about the incident, 

such as the number of shots fired, the reason for the interaction 

between law enforcement and the decedent, and whether the 

decedent threatened or assaulted officers or civilians during the 

incident may be incomplete or unavailable in the media.

Table 5

Manner of death by identification source, June-August, 2015 

All deaths Media-identified deaths Agency-reported deaths

Manner of death Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent

All manners of death 425 100% 377 100% 48 100%

Homicidea 270 64 268 71 2 4

Suicide 76 18 62 16 14 29

Accident 48 11 26 7 22 46

Natural 7 2 1 0 6 13

Undetermined 8 2 8 2 0 0

Unknown/investigation incomplete 16 4 12 3 4 8

Data source 100% 100% 100%

Indicated on incident form 300 71 257 68 43 90

Imputed from open source informationb 125 29 120 32 5 10 aHomicide is the willful killing of one person by another. It includes justifiable homicide by a law enforcement officer. 

bManner of death was imputed from open source information when it was not completed on the incident form from the state reporting coordinator (SRC) or medical 

examiner/coroners’ (ME/C) office or because no SRC or ME/C form was completed. Manner of death was not measured on the law enforcement agency incident form.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, June–August 2015. 
Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 2015–16: Preliminary Findings | December 2016 9

Federal coordination

The FBI has historically collected information on law 

enforcement homicides through the Supplementary Homicide 

Reports, which are part of the Uniform Crime Reporting 

Program. To better capture the wider scope of use of force by 

law enforcement officers, the FBI is developing a national use 

of force data collection system.

BJS and the FBI continue to coordinate data system 

development and data collection efforts to ensure that 

the activities of both federal agencies minimize reporting 

burden on law enforcement agencies and maximize the 

comprehensiveness and accuracy of the information that is 

collected. The ARD program redesign work will inform the 

development of a reliable and valid use of force data system 

maintained by the DOJ. This collaboration across agencies 

will serve as a way to maintain and increase data quality and 

public accountability.

The ARD program redesign also includes a survey of law 

enforcement agencies and medical examiner/coroners’ (ME/C) 

offices that did not have a potential arrest-related death 

identified through media review. This survey component was 

concluded in July 2016. Based on the survey data, BJS will 

update the number of arrest-related deaths that occurred 

from June to August 2015 to include any deaths identified 

by the additionally surveyed agencies. BJS will also report 

more detailed information on the circumstances surrounding 

confirmed arrest-related deaths, including decedent race and 

ethnicity, reason for law enforcement involvement, decedent 

actions during the incident, and law enforcement agency 

actions during the incident.

Additionally, the redesign study deviates from past ARD 

data collection efforts by centralizing data collection efforts 

across states, standardizing search efforts, and conducting 

direct contact with the responsible law enforcement and 

ME/C offices. These efforts result in improvements in data 

completeness and quality.
Office of Justice Programs

Building Solutions • Supporting Communities • Advancing Justice

www.ojp.usdoj.gov

NCJ250112

The Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice is the 

principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal 

victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, 

and the operation of criminal and civil justice systems at the federal, state, 

tribal, and local levels. BJS collects, analyzes, and disseminates reliable and 

valid statistics on crime and justice systems in the United States, supports 

improvements to state and local criminal justice information systems, 

and participates with national and international organizations to develop 

and recommend national standards for justice statistics. Jeri M. Mulrow is 

acting director.

This report was written by Duren Banks, Paul Ruddle, and Erin Kennedy 

of RTI International, and Michael Planty of BJS. Jason Nance and Nicole 

Johnson verified the report.

Morgan Young edited the report. Tina Dorsey and Morgan Young produced 

the report.

December 2016, NCJ 250112