County Jail Incarceration Rates and County Mortality Rates in the United States, 1987– 2016

Abstract Objectives. To evaluate the relationship between changes in county jail incarceration rates and subsequent county mortality rates across the United States. Methods. We analyzed county jail incarceration rates from the Bureau of Justice Statistics from 1987 to 2016 for 1884 counties and mortality rates from the National Vital Statistics System. We fit 1-year-lagged quasi-Poisson 2-way fixed-effects models, controlling for unmeasured stable county characteristics, and measured time-varying confounders, including county poverty and crime rates.