Theoretical Explanation of Death in Custody in the Context of Comparative Criminal Justice

By using of “dehumanization” (and its more recent versions) as well as “enemy hypothesing”, this paper aims to analyze the death of people who were deprived of their liberty in environments such as custody and prison. The main focus of the article is that which type of prisoners based on their charge or conviction are more vulnerable to the death in custody. To answer the question that which groups of accused or convicts are more vulnerable to the death in custody, by referencing mentioned theories and using case study, current paper tries to analyze 30 cases of death in custodies/prisons of Iran between 2004-2019. Findings of this article show us that all the prisoners are Not vulnerable to death in custody in equal proportions. Mostly, these are accused & convicts who exposure the death in custody that are deeply in conflict with some non-negligible values of criminal systems. Analysis of 30 cases of death in custodies of Iran show that in 21 cases reason of arrest or conviction are related to Security charges. The High number of security accused or convicts in the death in custodies statistics may reinforce this hypothesis that in the eyes of criminal justice’s authorities, such group of prisoners in the process of dehumanization was considered as enemy.