Here is the news report (and more):
State prison inmates, particularly blacks, are living longer on average than people on the outside, the government said Sunday. Inmates in state prisons are dying at an average yearly rate of 250 per 100,000, according to the latest figures reported to the Justice Department by state prison officials. By comparison, the overall population of people between age 15 and 64 is dying at a rate of 308 a year.
For black inmates, the rate was 57 percent lower than among the overall black population – 206 versus 484. But white and Hispanic prisoners both had death rates slightly above their counterparts in the overall population.
The post titles I had considered were:
So is this just an age effect?
Government health care works after all
Is the real world so nasty?
Involuntary paternalism
Prison is better than trans-fats
It sounds like this is just raw data and doesn’t account for a hundred different selection biases in the data.
Actually, prisons have become relatively safe places. As they’ve become privatized, prison firms have tried to minimize violence and health problems to avoid law suits and save costs. So it’s not surprising to see well taken care of prisoners do better than people on the outside who may have spotty access to health care. See an earlier discussion of this at my blog:
http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2006/10/10/are-prisons-getting-safer-a-view-from-the-inside/
I’ve been told that people who get out of prison also look much younger than their age. This probably has something to do with staying out of the sun.
Age effect. The prison population skews young compared to the general population, and so will have lower incidences of chronic age-related mortality.
I agree with Joan — something like 40,000 motor vehicle deaths on 300 million people accounts for something like 13 of the 250 deaths per year and prisoners don’t go in cars. Still a surprising number, I guess your odds of surviving getting shanked are better than I would have guessed.
The main reason black males live longer in prison than out seems pretty obvious: gun control is extremely strict in prison. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, “In 2004, homicide victimization rates for blacks were 6 times higher than the rates for whites.”
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
Steve-
The homicide rates you cited can explain only a very small fraction of the difference. Homicide rates were around 20 per 100,000, but the difference in death rates is 278 per 100,000. That hardly looks like a main reason.
My intuition is that it’s caused by prison removing the danger and volatility associated with poverty, as well as protection from so many of the things on the outside that kill you (car accidents, household accidents, etc…). Also, when you’ve got nothing to do all day but exercise, you end up in pretty good shape.
Dave:
No, as the quote above shows, the issue is the black male death rate in and out of prison: white and Hispanic death rates were slightly higher inside than outside. In 1993 (at the height of the crack wars) the black male death rate by homicides was 69.3 (compared to 8.6 for white males). That was higher than the death rate for black males of all accidents combined (60.8 versus 47.0 for white males). For young black males, homicide (especially by gun) is the big killer.
“Smell Test”, R.I.P.
What is interesting to me is the implicit idea that this fact is ironic.
Lots of sampling issues of course, but if we could control for them adequately we should hope, at least, that prison death rates are lower than on the outside. Prisons are supposed to be safe places because it is difficult to motivate locking up car thieves if there is a higher chance that they will be badly injured or killed in prison than on the outside. You can’t justify both the extreme restriction on liberty that prison represents and forcing individuals into a dangerous environment where their ability to act in their own self-defense is heavily restricted. To all you ‘we care about victims not criminals’ pinheads please be so kind as to SHUT IT in advance. All I am saying is that coercing people generates its own moral demands as well, even in prison.
If you come down with a fatal illness while in prison, don’t they let you out compassionately?
Steve: Homicides or suicides in prison, from the article, are about 8% of the deaths, or about 16 per 100,000. The black homicide victimization rate outside of prison, from the DOJ source you cite, in 2004 (not 1993!), was about 20 per 100,000. That’s a difference of 4 per 100,000, but it doesn’t account for the other 274 who are somehow staying alive in prison when they wouldn’t on the outside. There isn’t a city in the country with a murder rate of 278 per 100,000, not even close.
The age effect that people are talking about definitely seems like a better explanation. Does anyone know if the raw data is available to look at? I couldn’t even find the report the article is working off of.
Dave:
The 20 per 100.000 figure you give is for the total black victimization rate. In fact in 2004 more than 80% of black murder victims were * men* between 16-64, who are only 31% of the total black population.
The murder rate alone should thus account for about 45-50 per 100.000 of the 274 difference.
Also note that the black suicide rate has converged (up) to the white one, they should have nationally something like 10-15 per 100.000 for men for this agegroup.
This should explain a fair part the difference. Add the high number of accidents many have mentioned and we explain a good part of the difference, without taking into account age differences and better life-style.
“The truth is that protection against black-on-white prison rape is the main impetus for the formation of white racist gangs.” -Steve S.
Steve, from what data/research do you derive this “truth”? I personally am aware of white racist gangs forming in environments in which black-on-white prison rape is not a major concern. And I can’t think of anything special about prison that would make it impossible, or even less likely, that a racist gang could be formed for non rape related reasons.
How about titling it, “Follow-up to the best question I read on January 4th?” (http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/01/the_best_questi.html)
‘You can’t justify both the extreme restriction on liberty that prison represents and forcing individuals into a dangerous environment where their ability to act in their own self-defense is heavily restricted. ‘
-aaron m
Oh, yes you can. In fact, one can justify killing violent criminals. Now there’s a restriction on liberty. Civilized men have no responsibility for violent criminals. “I got my rights” doesn’t cut it. They don’t. Their treatment should be determined by what is good for the well-being of non-offenders.
And “SHUT IT”?? So one can’t even mention that violent criminals are responsible for the fix they find themselves in, whereas victims aren’t? Well, I guess saying “SHUT IT” is easier than, you know, refuting the hypothesis.
“And too many pillars of the establishment, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, make a lavish living off the existence ofwhite racist prison gangs by terrifying elderly liberals into believing that the Cossacks are about to ride through Shaker Heights unless they donate to the SPLC, to have an incentive to fight prison rape very hard.”
What an utterly bizarre thesis. This sounds much more like your typical Republican law-and-order pitch than something the SPLC sends out in their fundraising letters.
I agree with what Sebastian said. Prisons do have gun control so most black inmates are in some way related to gangs. Therefor in prison there are no gang shootings causein death to un armed pedestrians or other members of teh black community.
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