This week's Scene cover story is dedicated to remembering some of the people who died in our city and state in 2019, including individuals from sports, music, business, politics and more.
There's another population, though, whose lives and deaths are often overlooked — the more than 30,000 people who are incarcerated in Tennessee prisons. The Scene requested from the Tennessee Department of Correction a list of every person who died in a Tennessee prison in 2019, as well as the causes of death. As of Dec. 30, 2019, 106 people had died in Tennessee prisons last year. That number is down slightly from 2018, when 124 people died in the state's prisons. Those figures also include the six men who were executed by the state in 2018 and 2019, deaths which are officially categorized as homicides.
TDOC lists more than half of 2019 prison deaths as "natural." On top of the three men who were executed in 2019, the department's list shows six homicides last year and five suicides, although there are 30 cases in which the manner of death is still pending.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the prison facility with the most deaths in 2019 was Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility, which is reserved for people whose medical needs can't be managed at other prisons. (It's worth noting, however, that there is reason to question how well prisoners' medical needs can be said to be "managed" at any prison facility.) At DeBerry, 38 people died in 2019, with the majority being categorized as natural deaths. One of those deaths, however — that of Jermey Booker in March — is listed as a homicide, while a manner of death is still pending in 10 others.
The facility with the second-most deaths in 2019 was the perpetually troubled Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, which is managed by CoreCivic. Fourteen people died there last year, including one homicide, and one death whose cause "could not be determined."
Of the five 2019 deaths listed as suicides, two occurred at South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton.
You can read the full list provided by TDOC here.
