Teresa Henderson’s son, Steven Kidd Jr., died on Sept. 12 inside Jackson Correctional Institution in Malone, Florida. A prison chaplain called on a Saturday to notify the family of his death, Henderson recalled. She said the chaplain told them that Kidd had died alone in his cell in the middle of the night and that the case was under investigation.

Henderson was shocked by the news. Kidd died just nine days before he was set to be released, she noted. He had called her a few days before his death, imagining the life waiting for him on the outside.

“After calling there so many times and them telling me it was under investigation and not telling me any details of what was going on,” she said, “I felt suspicious.”

Henderson wanted a second opinion on how Kidd died, but she couldn’t afford one in the time she had to decide. When a funeral home finally called to say Kidd’s body was being released and asked if she wanted to proceed with cremation, she said yes.

“I was just distraught,” she said. “I said, ‘At this point, I don’t really have a choice.’”

Each year, thousands of people die in U.S. prisons and jails. Over the last six months, The Marshall Project has heard from dozens of families across the country about their experiences bringing loved ones home after dying behind bars. In case after case, they told The Marshall Project they felt as if their loved ones remained under lock and key, even in death.

To understand the hurdles families have to clear, The Marshall Project requested the policies and procedures for responding to deaths in custody from every state prison system and the federal Bureau of Prisons. Thirty-four departments responded.

In the best-case scenario, families can face open-ended wait times while officials investigate how their loved ones died. In at least 18 states, that process includes locking down the area and treating it as a potential crime scene if the death is suspicious or unexplained. Many states don’t set deadlines for wrapping up the investigation, forcing families to live with uncertainty and compounding grief. In these cases, belongings can be withheld until an investigation closes, a process that can stretch for months.

In the worst cases, when deaths are sudden or unexpected, state policies make it difficult for families to get an outside opinion on what happened — limiting their ability to question the state’s account or hold the facilities accountable for a possible wrongful death.

Often, the next of kin has to make decisions about what to do with the body or risk having their loved one labeled as “unclaimed.” At least 29 states spell out what happens in those cases. In roughly 10 states, that window to act can range from 48 hours to 10 days. When families can’t act quickly or afford funeral costs, the state can move forward on its own — often cremating or burying the body on prison grounds.

Experts say the policies are written to shield institutions from liability. Families are often regarded as potential problems who might sue, go to the press or file complaints, said Paul Parker, a veteran death investigator who has worked in medical examiner offices in three states. Parker has participated in hundreds of reviews of in-custody deaths.

“It’s the human perspective that’s missing here,” he said. “It’s the fact that [incarcerated] people are humans, and the families that they’re leaving behind are human and deserve answers no matter what.”

For Donald Prutting, one holdup after another slowed the release of his brother’s body. In February, his younger brother, Kenneth, died of brain swelling caused by leukemia while in federal custody in southern California. Kenneth spent the final weeks of his life in a hospital. His death was reported to the coroner, but Prutting said the coroner declined to perform an autopsy because Kenneth had been under a doctor’s care. The prison ordered one anyway, adding two more weeks until the body could be sent to his family, Prutting said.

Then came another delay: The Bureau of Prisons required formal identification before release — a photograph and fingerprints — which took a little over a week, according to Prutting. Hoping to avoid further delays, he asked if prison officials would allow his brother to be cremated in California so only his ashes would need to travel. But the request was denied, Prutting said.

By the time Kenneth’s body was cleared to be sent to Connecticut, nearly three weeks had passed. A paperwork error between the funeral homes in charge of the travel logistics left Kenneth’s body sitting at Bradley International Airport near Hartford for two days, Prutting said.

Aside from the initial notification call, Prutting said no one from the prison reached out. The only person who kept him informed was a funeral director.

“The system is broken,” Prutting said. “The families should not be punished. We did nothing.”

Months later, Kenneth’s final possessions — a “substantial” account balance, as he was told, and several pairs of sneakers — had still not been returned. In June, Prutting pleaded with the federal prison system via email: “We were told to be patient, but I think 5 months is beyond being patient.” He never heard back.

“You would think that [Kenneth’s] sentence ends at death, but that’s not true,” Prutting said.

The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to a request for comment, sending instead a form email stating that it was not available to respond because of the government shutdown.

The delays that families experience — whether in getting information, remains or property back — often can be traced back to policy gaps, said Alycia Welch, associate director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. Welch helped lead a 50-state review of prison death policies and found that many agencies don’t clearly outline when families should be notified, what information can be shared, or who is responsible for doing it. Without those details, she noted, the default is for agencies to withhold information.

“Families feel like they become the people that are being punished because their loved one was someone who was incarcerated,” she said. “They’re just trying to…honor their loved one.”

After her father died from heart disease, diabetes and complications from an infection at Nevada’s High Desert State Prison in March, Courtney Crosby discovered that his personal belongings were being treated as evidence. At first, prison officials told her to sign a release form so she could collect her father’s property, she said. But three months later, when nothing had been returned, Crosby learned through her lawyer that the items were “under investigation.” The inventory she received listed what the prison still had: a pair of shoes, socks, sweatpants, legal mail, letters and lotion. Crosby’s legal team finally received those items almost four months after her father’s death.

But several things were missing, she said — a notebook with a Michael Jordan quote her father liked, blue Warby Parker glasses, and a copy of “Shoe Dog,” the memoir by Nike founder Phil Knight — and other items Crosby had sent her father during his short incarceration.

“It makes me feel like they threw his stuff out, like he’s trash,” she said.

The Nevada Department of Corrections did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

After an unexpected or unnatural death, staff seal and document the scene: photographing, logging and collecting potential evidence before internal and/or external investigators arrive. Because a person’s belongings are treated as part of that evidence, they can be held for weeks or months. Policies in at least 13 prison systems allow property to be withheld until an investigation closes. And rarely do the departments spell out what families can do if items are missing, incorrect or never returned at all.

Next, separate but parallel investigations begin: one by the medical examiner or coroner, one internal review by corrections, and a criminal investigation that can involve outside law enforcement. Each runs on its own timeline, and investigations can last up to a year, experts said.

When a death in the community occurs, families usually meet directly with medical examiners, exchange contact information and learn next steps. In custody, families often have to go through corrections officials for updates, which can slow direct communication with the medical examiner. Miscommunication or an inability to set clear expectations with families are often the main cause of frustration, said Dr. Deland Weyrauch, a deputy medical examiner in Montana. Even short waits can be upsetting when no one explains what’s happening, he added.

Once bodies are released after an autopsy, the financial burden for final arrangements falls heavily on families. In at least 24 prison systems, next of kin are responsible for paying burial or transport costs. A few exceptions exist — for example, Minnesota pays a set amount toward burial or cremation, and a few states allow families to use their loved one’s prison account or apply for state or county assistance — but those cases are limited.

Crosby was shocked to learn her family would be billed more than $4,000 for the transport, embalming, flights, and paperwork needed to send her father’s body home to New Jersey — a charge her mother put on a credit card. Under Nevada policy, the department may cover shipping if it costs less than cremation; otherwise, when a family claims the body, the costs are theirs, and if they don’t claim it, the state pays only for cremation.

Tight timelines and unexpected expenses fall hardest on poor and working-class families — the same people most likely to be caught up in the criminal justice system. An independent autopsy can cost several thousand dollars, said UCLA professor Terence Keel, who runs the Coroner Report Project, which examines how death investigators and the systems overseeing them shape what families and the public learn about in-custody deaths. Families often have to choose between using the “money on an autopsy or… to bury their loved ones,” he added.

“By weaponizing both time and weaponizing the money against them, it’s another way to make sure that the state covers its back when these types of tragedies happen,” Keel said.

Short deadlines create more pressure. In New York, Texas and California, families have as little as 48 hours to claim their loved one’s body; in Utah and Pennsylvania, five days; in North Carolina, 10 days. At least two states impose short deadlines on the state instead of on the families, requiring a minimum waiting period — 48 and 96 hours — before the state can cremate an unclaimed body.

For Henderson, whose son died in a Florida prison, the entire process, from learning of his death to receiving his remains, unfolded over roughly nine days.

Troubled by his sudden death and the lack of information from prison officials, Henderson looked into getting a second opinion on how her son died.

An independent autopsy would have cost thousands in preparation, transport and testing fees. Henderson considered several options for help covering the cost. She checked whether she could withdraw from her 401(k) but hadn’t built up enough, tried to raise the money through a GoFundMe, and considered taking out a loan against her car. None of those options could deliver the money in time, she said.

“We ran out of time because they held his body so long, and I didn’t know what was going on, because they would never give me any answers,” Henderson said. “So it came down to there was no time to do anything else but have my son cremated.”

Florida Department of Corrections policy, as of 2020, requires a person’s body to remain in state custody until the district medical examiner approves its release. Once approved, the body can be released to anyone who “makes a valid claim” to it and agrees to take on the cost of final arrangements. The body may be held for what the department calls a “medically acceptable” period while officials wait to see if anyone comes forward. If no one does, the state arranges burial or cremation. Staff are instructed to tell the family “whenever possible and practical” when cremation is chosen.

The Florida Department of Corrections did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Unlike incarcerated people, families have no constitutional protections dictating how they are to be treated by the prison systems. Once a loved one dies inside, there is generally no recognized right for relatives to be kept informed. After an incarcerated person’s death, it is difficult for families to hold a prison system liable for how the prison responds, said Sarah Grady, a civil rights lawyer who represents families in deaths-in-custody cases.

“Prisons just don’t have practices in place to keep [families] in mind, and often the opposite,” Grady said. “They’re designed to try to enact as many barriers as possible.”

Federal lawmakers are now trying to eliminate some barriers by improving communication between the prisons and the next of kin. In April, Sens. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat from Georgia, and John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, introduced the Family Notification of Death, Injury or Illness in Custody Act. It would require federal prisons to follow new Justice Department standards for notifying families, and direct the U.S. Attorney General to share model policies with states to encourage similar reforms nationwide.

Families and experts say reform has to start with three basic principles: compassion, transparency and clear timelines. Prisons could give relatives shorter timeframes for notification and clearer communication during investigations, for example, or clearly designate who is responsible for calling families, what information must be shared, and when. To give property back in a timely fashion, items could be documented, photographed and released.

A few states offer glimpses of what a family-centered process could look like: Virginia and West Virginia’s corrections departments supply families and friends with bereavement guides that outline staff roles, explain upcoming investigative steps and how families can request information.

Where prison systems offer no clear path, families have found their own ways to restore some dignity. After Prutting’s brother was cremated, he kept the ashes near the television until the New York Knicks’ 2025 playoff series ended — a team Kenneth loved since childhood.

Crosby’s family bought empty plots on either side of her father’s gravesite so he wouldn’t be “cramped” against strangers, the way he had been in prison. “We wanted him to just have space around him,” she said.

Henderson didn’t get the same chance.

She and her daughter had planned to be together when Kidd’s remains finally arrived. Instead, a medium-sized U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail Express box marked “cremated remains” arrived a day early while her daughter was home alone.

“I felt like, ‘Here you go, we’re done doing whatever we’re gonna do, and here’s your son,” she said. ‘“This is how you’re gonna get him.’”