COVID-19 Cases and Deaths in Federal and State Prisons

Abstract

Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) represents a challenge to prisons because of close confinement, limited access to personal protective equipment, and elevated burden of cardiac and respiratory conditions that exacerbate COVID-19 risk among prisoners. 1 Although news reports document prison outbreaks of COVID-19, systematic data are lacking. 2 Relying on officially reported data, we examined COVID-19 case rates and deaths among federal and state prisoners. Methods | Counts of COVID-19 cases and presumed or confirmed deaths among prisoners were collected daily by the UCLA Law COVID-19 Behind Bars Data Project from March 31, 2020, to June 6, 2020. 3 Counts were extracted daily from departments of corrections websites and, as needed, supplemented with news reports and press releases. Data included all states, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Cases were reported cumulatively (including active confirmed cases, recoveries, and decedents). Deaths attributable to COVID-19 were defined by each department of corrections based on the determination of the departments of corrections or external medical exam

Decarceration and community re-entry in the COVID-19 era

“…31 By contrast, jails and prisons in the USA have not depopulated at the same scale as other countries. [46][47][48][49]51,52 Additionally, amid this exponential increase in cases and the casefatality rate among incarcerated people, 39 current federal guidance continues to withhold expanded testing approaches that could provide invaluable guidance for population management strategies inside correctional facilities. 28 The eighth amendment of the US Constitution clearly guarantees freedom from cruel and unusual punish ments; however, the illness and deaths caused by COVID19 in prisons show inherent cruelties within the correctional systems of the USA.…”

British Columbia Provincial Corrections’ Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Correctional Policy and Practice

“…As noted, BC Corrections' predominant use of single-bunking and induction units is contingent on low provincial custody counts (BC Corrections, 2020a). In the months ahead, crime rates, police decision-making, increased court activity, judicial decision-making, community infection rates, and other factors will fundamentally determine whether BC Corrections can continue to utilize the strategies they have implemented to address the pandemic and that have to date been so effective in preventing major outbreaks of COVID-19 in custody centers while other correctional authorities have failed to do so (see Franco-Paredes et al, 2020;Marcum, 2020;Oladeru et al, 2020;Ouellet & Loiero, 2020;Saloner et al, 2020).…”

“…Health and justice officials across North America have described correctional institutions as petri dishes for the transmission of COVID-19 (see e.g., Paynter, 2020). Correctional authorities have struggled to implement strategies to mitigate infection rates within custodial populations (Franco-Paredes et al, 2020;Marcum, 2020;Oladeru et al, 2020;Ouellet & Loiero, 2020;Saloner et al, 2020). A preliminary analysis of COVID-19 infection rates among incarcerated populations in Canada conducted in July 2020 found that infection rates were up to five times higher in provincial custodial institutions and nine times higher in federal correctional institutions than infection rates in the community (Ouellet & Loiero, 2020).…”

A Comparison of COVID-19 Epidemiology, Pathophysiology, and Impact on Vulnerable Populations in Two States within the USA

“…All Rights Reserved http://journals.ke-i.org/index.php/mra 42,107 cases of COVID-19 and 510 deaths among 1,295,285 prisoners with a case rate of 3,251 per 100,000 prisoners," a rate that "was 5.5 times higher than the US population case rate of 587 per 100,000." 153 When accounting for age and sex distributions in the prison population, "the adjusted death rate… was 3.0 times higher than would be expected" than that of the general public. Based on this data, "prisoners are hospitalized and dying more frequently when infected."…”