Research Methodology

Accompanying text for researching deaths in custody (as of January 2026)

Due to overlaps in content, we—the research initiatives Death in Custody (DiC) and Tode bei Polizeieinsätzen aufklären! (topa)—have decided to work more closely together and to publish our research findings jointly from 2025 onward. Below, we outline the criteria according to which we will document deaths jointly in the future.

Point of departure

DiC began its research in 2019 on deaths of racialized people in custody, detention, or as a result of police violence since 1990. Initially, DiC documented only cases in which the person killed was affected by racism. After a longer process of discussion, however, the documentation was opened as of the cut-off date of January 1, 2025 to include all deaths in custody. The background to this decision can be read here. Since 2022, topa has been researching all deaths in connection with police operations in Germany. We are now bringing these two research approaches together.

Our work is necessary because authorities in Germany do not reliably record how many people die in custody. When data are collected, they usually provide little to no information about the victims. We want to highlight this gap, which allows authorities to downplay the extent of state violence. At the same time, given the poor quality of available data, we must assume that many deaths remain unknown. We therefore see our efforts as an encouragement for people with greater resources—journalists, academics, and policymakers—to take up and continue this research.

Sources

Our research would not be possible without the decades-long work of independent documentation centers and initiatives that, mostly on a voluntary basis, collect data on lethal state violence. Among our most important sources, especially for the 1990s and 2000s, are

• the documentation of the Antiracist Initiative “Federal German refugee policy and its deadly consequences” (since 1993), as well as

• the research on fatal police shootings by the journal CILIP, which was previously published annually and is now released on an ongoing basis.

In addition, we network with initiatives that are fighting to clarify individual deaths and without whose work the names of many victims of state violence would long since have been forgotten. We initiate parliamentary inquiries, submit requests under the freedom of information laws via FragDenStaat, and conduct targeted and critical reviews of media coverage as well as police press releases.

Definition of custody

Our research is based on a broad understanding of custody, or custodial situations, that goes far beyond the legal definition (custody in the sense of a liberty-depriving measure by the police). In order to fall under our definition of a death in custody, the state’s apparatus of violence must have played a causal role in the death. Two perspectives are to be distinguished:

Spatial: The death occurred in a place where the person concerned was held against their will by order of the state, for example in prison, in police custody, in a closed psychiatric institution, or on an aircraft during a deportation. Custody also means “care” or “guardianship.” State institutions and their employees have a duty to attend to the physical and psychological well-being of the people whose liberty they deprive. When people do not survive custodial situations, the state has failed to ensure their safety and bears responsibility.

Actor-related: Actors of the state’s apparatus of violence are responsible for the death. This makes it possible to also include fatal police shootings, deaths resulting from the police’s use of physical force, or deaths occurring during immediate flight from the police. In such cases, a custodial situation is created in that the police, through their actions, create a situation with no way out, from which those affected cannot free themselves alive.

The spatial and actor-related perspectives may also overlap when a person in custody is killed or murdered by the police (for example, Oury Jalloh). As a general rule, we also include deaths for which private security services with police-like powers are responsible (as in the case of Tonou-Mbobda).

In the course of our research, several borderline cases have emerged:

1) Violence and weaponization

Our overarching goal is to document state violence and make it publicly visible. For this purpose, it is fundamentally irrelevant how the people affected behaved prior to their death or whether they were “innocent” before experiencing violence by the police or other state violence actors. Accordingly, we also document cases in which people killed by the police were themselves armed. Deaths that were preceded by patriarchal violence (e.g., [attempted] femicides) or other severe violence against third parties are commented on separately, but are likewise included.

In our society, there are various forms and structures of violence that stand in relation to one another. In some cases, they condition and justify each other. Our focus is on state violence exercised by the police, detention facilities, psychiatric institutions, and deportation authorities. Equally important are research collectives that draw attention to other forms of violence and to those affected by them (for example, Femizide stoppen).

2) “Suicide”

In many cases of death in custody or detention, “suicide” is given as the cause of death. However, we assume that within a total institution (prison, police custody, closed psychiatric institutions) that determines every aspect of life, there can be no free decision to end one’s own life. Rather, the conditions of detention ensure that prisoners are systematically stripped of their will to live. For this reason, we record these cases as deaths in custody. This is an insight gained by one of our comrades in the research working group—an insight not drawn from books, but from blood and tears in connection with the death of her brother, who was deemed unfit for detention, was denied care in Tegel Prison, and whom the institution allowed to die in solitary confinement.

Another reason is that the statements of the authorities cannot be trusted. Because custody excludes observation or intervention from the outside, state violence actors hold interpretive power over what happened. In the case of Oury Jalloh as well, it was officially claimed for years that he had set himself on fire. By now, however, we know through the self-organized investigative work of the Initiative in Memory of Oury Jalloh that he was beaten to death by police officers and subsequently burned.

3) Camps

There are significant overlaps, particularly between large collective camps (so-called reception centers, ANKER centers, Dublin centers) and prisons: the entire daily routine is regulated, there is constant surveillance as well as disciplinary measures by security staff. Although, in theory, it is possible to leave the camps, in practice the residents’ freedom of movement is severely restricted due to their isolated locations and the strict residence obligation. Similar to police custody or detention, guards and police officers in conflict situations hold a high degree of interpretive power, while there is a lack of independent witnesses and external oversight.

We include deaths in camps when the police or security guards are involved in any way, for example in the course of a raid or deportation, or when there is a failure to provide assistance. We do not record “suicides” and other deaths, because otherwise the analytical distinction from “self-inflicted deaths” outside of camps—but based on similar motives (negative asylum decision, fear of deportation, lack of prospects)—would be lost. On the topic of the deadly consequences of the racist asylum system in the Federal Republic of Germany, we refer to the excellent documentation by the Antiracist Initiative.

A final note: We do not know all the names. Unfortunately, we also do not know all the needs of the bereaved. If survivors—whether family members, friends, acquaintances, or others engaged in this work—have comments or criticism regarding any of our representations, we warmly invite them to contact us. This also applies to adding, correcting, and making public further information (e.g., names, information about the incident, and contextual details). Beyond this, we are open to criticism and feedback in general, especially given our awareness of the sensitivity and gravity of the subject.

Suggested citation: Death in Custody & topa, 2026, Updated accompanying text for researching deaths in custody, available online at doku.deathincustody.info/en/research