Citation

Lupu A, Panaitescu V, Rosu M, Stefan L. Rom. J. Leg. Med. 2012; 20(1): 37-40.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Romanian Legal Medicine Society)

DOI

10.4323/rjlm.2012.37

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Death in custody is defined as a death taking place in the custody of the police, prison service, involuntary patients in psychiatric institutions or in the custody of other authorities; independent of the cause or manner of death. In this article we wanted to analyze the main features of the death in custody in Romania. The study was conducted using data obtained from the Romanian National Penitentiary Administration from 2003 to 2008; data was included in, and analyzed using the Microsoft Excel 2007 software. The main results we have obtained are (1) the medium number of prisoners, mortality and morbidity have declined from 2003 to 2008, whilst the mortality and morbidity rates remained almost constant. By analyzing the causes of death we identified a significant decrease in the number of non-violent deaths, whilst the number of violent deaths remained almost constant. The most frequent non-lethal pathologies were respiratory, gastrointestinal and dermatological whilst the most frequently lethal pathologies were cardiovascular and neoplastic. A violent manner of death was identified in a minority of cases, and was usually represented by suicides (by hanging). In conclusion, the matter of death in penitentiaries in Romania is mostly non-violent, with cardiovascular and neoplastic disorders being the most frequent lethal pathologies. The relative number of violent deaths has increased in the last years, suggesting the need for more strict rules and regulations. © 2012 Romanian Society of Legal Medicine.

Language: en

Keywords

human; violence; suicide; cause of death; mortality; forensic medicine; morbidity; death; article; major clinical study; prisoner; cardiovascular disease; respiratory tract disease; gastrointestinal disease; neoplasm; Romania; skin disease; Death in custody; Causes of death in penitentiaries; death in custody; Penitentiary