Jeffrey Epstein s apparent suicide inside the federally run Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan shocked the country. How could officials allow one of the most high-profile prisoners in the U.S. to end his life, especially since he had just tried and failed less than a month ago? Conspiracy theories are everywhere: It must be murder at the hands of one of Epsteins powerful and as-yet-unnamed co-conspirators in his allegedly widespread child sex trafficking operation.

But the truth is almost certainly more mundane. When theres more than one possible explanation for an occurrence, the simplest one is usually correct, said Erik Heipt, an attorney who has litigated a number of jail death lawsuits. People commit suicide in jails, in prisons, all the time.

Jail suicides which are almost always preventable have been the No. 1 cause of jail deaths each year since at least the turn of the century .

Tragically, theres nothing out of the ordinary about what happened to Mr. Epstein, and therefore no reason to resort to bizarre conspiracy theories, said David Fathi, the director of the American Civil Liberties Unions national prison project. This is just the, you know, baseline dysfunction of prisons and jails and how suicide prevention in most prisons and jails is a joke.

Moreover, the fact Epstein was in the hands of the federal government doesnt necessarily mean he was getting superior supervision than he would at a county jail. The Federal Bureau of Prisons, like many law enforcement agencies, is badly understaffed and operates largely in the dark, with an opaque internal affairs system that often fails to hold officers accountable.

The swift accountability thats taken place this week, with several employees already transferred or placed on leave in an investigation spearheaded by the attorney general himself, is perhaps the only thing unusual about Epsteins death. Otherwise, hes just another grim data point in the nations stunning inability to keep its prisoners alive.

Its amazing how often [records] are faked.

The New York Times reported that the two overworked staffers assigned to Epsteins unit one of whom wasnt working as a corrections officer but was forced to take on that role due to staffing shortages fell asleep and falsified records saying they had performed checks as required.

Fake cell checks are extremely, extremely common said Heipt. In almost every jail death case Ive handled, you have that. Often for entire shifts, where a guard is documenting a check prisoner OK, or signing their initials at a particular time during a 12-hour shift. Its amazing how often those things are faked.

When you pencil-whip shit, that means that youre falsifying records, one BOP employee explained. If you wanna lie and do some underhanded shit, youve gotta deal with it.

BOP union officials have been raising the alarm about staffing shortages for years. In a process called augmentation, BOP managers have been forcing people who arent corrections officers to guard inmates. Union officials warned it would turn deadly.

My officers are getting mandated on a daily basis, said Joe Rojas, a BOP employee and union official who works at a facility in Florida. You have officers working doubles three out of five days a week. Thats just insane.

Theyre getting bonuses and were understaffed, said one BOP employee speaking on the condition of anonymity, referring to recent USA Today reporting on bonus payouts to prison executives. What kind of fucking sense does that make?

Every inmate should be monitored according to regulations, but Epstein, in particular, demanded close attention not only because of the sprawling nature of his alleged crimes but because they involved sex offenses that could have sent him to prison until his death.

HuffPosts jail death database , which sought to track jail deaths in the one-year period after Sandra Blands death in July 2015, includes at least 24 suicides in which the deceased defendant was facing sex crime charges or was a registered sex offender. Thats nearly 10% of the suicides included in the database, which falls short of capturing every jail death that happened in that timeframe.

At least a dozen of the defendants in the database who died by suicide were charged in sex crimes that involved minor victims. Federal jail deaths data, last released when Barack Obama was still president , doesnt break down how many local jail inmates who died by suicide were facing sex-related charges.