Abstract: Objective To screen and collect the cases of unnatural death in custody and analyze the influences and forensic characteristics. Methods Total 25 cases of unnatural death in detainees in custody form 2000 to 2015 were collected. Some forensic characteristics such as gender, age, yearly incidence, causes of death, manner of death were analyzed. The public security custodies were also compared with the prisons. Results All dead involved were male, mostly were young and middle-aged adults. It showed that the number of cases tended to decrease year by year. The incidence of the injury cases were higher in public security custodies （64.7%） than that in the prisons （12.5%）. However, there was a higher suicide rate in prisons （62.5%） than that in public security custodies （23.5%）. The mainly cause of death were injury and asphyxia, there were also some cases died from intoxication and electricity. Conclusion The cases of unnatural death in custody expose some problems such as the imperfectness of law enforcement standardization, supervision loopholes and poor medical standards. A comprehensive and detailed autopsy has important implications for the identification of cause of death in custody.

Key words: forensic pathology, cause of death, custody, unnatural deaths, manner of death, cases analysis