Sensitivity of a national coronial database for monitoring unnatural deaths among ex-prisoners in Australia

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Author(s)
Andrews, JY
Forsyth, S
Wade, J
Kinner, SA
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2011
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Background: The period immediately after release from custody is a time of marked vulnerability and increased
risk of death for ex-prisoners. Despite this, there is currently no routine, national system for monitoring ex-prisoner
mortality in Australia. This study subsequently aimed to evaluate the sensitivity of Australia’s National Coroners
Information System (NCIS) for identifying reportable deaths among prisoners and ex-prisoners.
Findings: Prisoner and ex-prisoner deaths identified through an independent search of the NCIS were compared
with ‘gold standard’ records of prisoner and ex-prisoner deaths, generated from a ...
View more >Background: The period immediately after release from custody is a time of marked vulnerability and increased risk of death for ex-prisoners. Despite this, there is currently no routine, national system for monitoring ex-prisoner mortality in Australia. This study subsequently aimed to evaluate the sensitivity of Australia’s National Coroners Information System (NCIS) for identifying reportable deaths among prisoners and ex-prisoners. Findings: Prisoner and ex-prisoner deaths identified through an independent search of the NCIS were compared with ‘gold standard’ records of prisoner and ex-prisoner deaths, generated from a national monitoring system and a state-based record linkage study, respectively. Of 294 known deaths in custody from 2001-2007, an independent search of the NCIS identified 229, giving a sensitivity of 77.9% (72.8%-82.3%). Of 677 known deaths among exprisoners from 2001-2007, an independent search of the NCIS identified 37, giving a sensitivity of 5.5% (4.0-7.4%). Ex-prisoner deaths that were detected were disproportionately drug-related, occurring within the first four weeks post-release, among younger prisoners and among those with more than two prior prison admissions. Conclusions: Although a search of the NCIS detected the majority of reportable deaths among prisoners, it was only able to detect a small minority of reportable deaths among ex-prisoners. This suggests that the NCIS is not effective for monitoring mortality among ex-prisoners in Australia. Given the elevated rates of mortality among exprisoners in Australia and elsewhere, there remains an urgent need to establish a process for routine monitoring of ex-prisoner mortality, preferably through record linkage.
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View more >Background: The period immediately after release from custody is a time of marked vulnerability and increased risk of death for ex-prisoners. Despite this, there is currently no routine, national system for monitoring ex-prisoner mortality in Australia. This study subsequently aimed to evaluate the sensitivity of Australia’s National Coroners Information System (NCIS) for identifying reportable deaths among prisoners and ex-prisoners. Findings: Prisoner and ex-prisoner deaths identified through an independent search of the NCIS were compared with ‘gold standard’ records of prisoner and ex-prisoner deaths, generated from a national monitoring system and a state-based record linkage study, respectively. Of 294 known deaths in custody from 2001-2007, an independent search of the NCIS identified 229, giving a sensitivity of 77.9% (72.8%-82.3%). Of 677 known deaths among exprisoners from 2001-2007, an independent search of the NCIS identified 37, giving a sensitivity of 5.5% (4.0-7.4%). Ex-prisoner deaths that were detected were disproportionately drug-related, occurring within the first four weeks post-release, among younger prisoners and among those with more than two prior prison admissions. Conclusions: Although a search of the NCIS detected the majority of reportable deaths among prisoners, it was only able to detect a small minority of reportable deaths among ex-prisoners. This suggests that the NCIS is not effective for monitoring mortality among ex-prisoners in Australia. Given the elevated rates of mortality among exprisoners in Australia and elsewhere, there remains an urgent need to establish a process for routine monitoring of ex-prisoner mortality, preferably through record linkage.
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Journal Title
BMC Research Notes
Volume
4
Copyright Statement
© Andrews et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Note
Page numbers are not for citation purposes. Instead, this article has the unique article number of 450.
Subject
Biochemistry and cell biology
Other health sciences
Correctional theory, offender treatment and rehabilitation