Public slice
Three annual aggregate rows are live now: 2015, 2016, and 2017 Michigan in-custody deaths.
Active ledgers
Solitary confinement days, children of incarcerated parents, and pretrial detention length by race and county.
Correction route
Every count is a claim with a receipt. Corrections are logged as the record improves, not hidden.
Latest count
497checked-in
Checked deaths across the 2015-2017 Michigan aggregate slice. The broader 2015-2024 person-level ledger remains in progress.
Download aggregate CSV →Current committed rows are annual aggregates for 2015, 2016, and 2017. Person-level rows publish only after source review.
Latest article
A careful count does not begin as a headline number. It begins as a row that can survive being questioned. This first public slice explains why The Counted Press is publishing the ledger in layers instead of pretending the unfinished work is finished.
Read the article →Support the ledger
Reader support pays for record pulls, cleaning, corroboration, and correction work. The site is wired for payment links; secure checkout URLs are the next activation step.
Support Counted Press →How the work becomes publishable
A single death pulled from an MDOC FOIA return does not arrive as a count. It arrives as a row that has to earn its place. Scroll to follow it through four stages.
Stage 01
One death is pulled from an MDOC public-records (FOIA) return. The row exists, but nothing about it has been checked. Fields are partial, formats are inconsistent, and it carries no claim yet.
Stage 02
Fields are normalized: date, facility, classification. The row becomes legible and comparable to others, but a clean row is still only an assertion. It can survive editing without yet surviving doubt.
Stage 03
Independent sources are attached. The Counted Press will not publish a person-level row below a floor of three corroborating sources and a confidence of 0.60. Below the floor, the row waits.
Stage 04
Only now does the row join the running count. The published tally is the same number the page leads with — prose and figure cannot drift, because the count is built one survived row at a time.
Method & sources
| Stage | Name | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Raw record | Pulled from FOIA return; unchecked. |
| 02 | Cleaned | Fields normalized; still an assertion. |
| 03 | Corroborated | 3 sources attached; confidence 0.72. |
| 04 | Published | Joins the running count (497). |
The committed slice, by year
Three annual aggregate rows are live. Person-level rows for 2018–2024 remain in progress and are deliberately left out of the count below.
Get in touch
For data requests, corrections, or partnership on counting projects that matter.
editor@counted.press · tips@counted.press