Most of the 205 inmates who died over the past three years while in Oklahoma Corrections Department custody died of natural causes, a trend that likely will continue as the prison system's population grows older, reports the Oklahoman. The manner of death in 155 of those cases–three-quarters of the total–was deemed “natural” by the state medical examiner.
Fifteen of the inmates' deaths were described as “homicides,” a figure that includes prisoners executed by the state.There were 14 inmate suicides reported by the Corrections Department since 2010, making it the third-most common way prisoners die while in state custody. Thirteen of the deaths on the list provided by the Corrections Department were described as “pending,” most of them occurring within the last year or so. In fact, 11 of the 53 documented inmate deaths this year are listed as “pending.”