How have counting methods (absolute counts vs. death rates per 100,000 detainees) changed the public narrative about deaths in immigration detention?

1. How absolute counts shaped outrage and advocacy

Advocacy groups and media have long used absolute death totals to dramatize systemic harm, compiling figures such as "since 2003 at least 230 people have died in ICE custody" or multi-year tallies that emphasize each loss and alleged neglect ^[1]. Those raw counts feed legal pressure and public outrage because they are immediately legible and morally compelling: individual names, facility histories, and repeated investigative narratives about substandard care make totals a potent advocacy tool ^{[4] [1]}. Nonprofits also point to operational practices—like releasing detainees immediately prior to death—that can reduce official counts and thereby change the narrative unless watchdogs track every case ^[4].

2. Why rates per 100,000 admissions change the framing

Researchers calculate death rates per 100,000 admissions or per person-year to adjust for changing detention flows and lengths of stay, producing a different lens on mortality that allows apples-to-apples comparisons across years and facilities ^{[2] [5]}. Academic work that reports death rates found that the COVID-19 period produced an increased death rate even as population dynamics shifted, and that FY2022 showed the lowest death count and rate in part because the average daily population and length of stay fell—showing how rates can reveal trends that raw counts obscure ^[2]. Rates also expose where risk is concentrated: a facility with a small census but multiple deaths can show an outsized rate that raw totals would bury.

3. Denominator choices and the politics of measurement

Which denominator is chosen—total admissions, average daily population (ADP), person-years, or length-adjusted measures—materially alters reported rates and conclusions; studies have used admissions and person-years to account for transient populations and differing lengths of stay ^{[2] [5]}. Government dashboards and independent datasets vary in scope: ICE posts some statistics but has been criticized for limited reporting, while Vera’s database reconstructs daily populations across many more facilities, revealing discrepancies in official transparency and complicating rate calculations ^{[6] [3]}. This methodological plurality creates space for competing narratives: agencies can emphasize falling rates, advocates can emphasize rising totals or specific facility failures.

4. The COVID inflection and interpretation battles

The pandemic crystallized how method choices shape public understanding: medical studies documented increased death rates in FY2018–2020 and FY2021–2023 analysis periods and tied COVID-19 to excess mortality in detention, while noting that vaccine availability later reduced adverse outcomes—yet deaths persisted in the post-vaccine era, pointing to access gaps and policy failures ^[2]. Advocates leveraged absolute death stories to demand policy changes and improved medical protocols, whereas researchers used normalized rates to argue that increased deaths were not only a function of policy but also of higher exposure risks, changing facility use, and fluctuating ADP ^{[2] [7]}.

5. What a balanced narrative requires

A complete, credible account requires both metrics: absolute counts preserve human accountability and legal tracing of particular failures, while rates per 100,000 admissions or person-years allow comparison across time and facilities and control for evolving detention volumes ^{[1] [2] [5]}. Persistent data gaps—ICE’s selective reporting, releases before death that can shrink official totals, and the dispersed network of facilities—mean neither raw totals nor rates tell the whole story without transparent denominators and standardized methods ^{[4] [3] [8]}. The public narrative shifts depending on which metric is emphasized, and policy debates are shaped by whose numbers and methodologies are treated as authoritative.