COVID-19
Prison and jail responses to the pandemic
- Eligibility criteria for expedited COVID-19 release varied by state (Created: 2022)
- The largest state prison systems performed the most COVID-19 tests, but testing was uneven across states (Created: 2022)
- While some COVID-19 mitigation tactics were almost universally implemented, others were severely underused in prisons (Created: 2022)
- Vaccine policies varied greatly across jurisdictions (Created: 2022)
- What pandemic-related changes caused prison and jail populations to drop in 2020? (Created: 2022)
- Arrests fell 24% from 2019 to 2020, due to changes in daily life and short-term changes in enforcement of low-level crime (Created: 2022)
- Slowdowns in state courts contributed to the drop in incarceration from 2019 to 2020 (Created: 2022)
- The number of active "pending" cases in state criminal courts has grown exponentially since the early pandemic (Created: 2022)
- The prison population drops during the pandemic are the result of fewer admissions, not increasing releases (Created: 2022)
- After rapidly dropping their populations at the very start of the pandemic, jails have allowed their populations to creep back up during most of 2021 (Created: 2022)
- In NYC, the early-pandemic effort to reduce overcrowded jail populations has largely been abandoned (Created: 2022)
- Most prison populations dropped early in the pandemic, but have since leveled off (Created: 2022)
- Many prisons are still charging medical copays during COVID-19 (Created: 2022)
- States released fewer people during 2020 than in 2019 (Created: 2022)
- Many state prison populations are ticking back up despite the ongoing pandemic (Created: 2022)
- COVID-19 data transparency varies greatly across prison systems (Created: 2021)
- State prison populations haven't dropped nearly enough during the pandemic, any many are actually growing in 2021 (Created: 2021)
- The average number of people released from state prisons each month has been falling since 2019, despite the urgent need to decarcerate during the pandemic (Created: 2021)
- Few states made significant efforts to reduce prison populations (Created: 2021)
- Across the country, prisons have seen higher COVID-19 infection and mortality rates than their surrounding states (Created: 2021)
- Many prison systems prioritized vaccinations for incarcerated people, but others still lag behind (Created: 2021)
- Most states fail to provide the bare minimum behind bars (Created: 2021)
- State prison systems continue to fail during COVID-19 (Created: 2021)
- Less than half of prison staff are vaccinated in most states (Created: 2021)
- Jail populations dropped by 25% early in the pandemic (Created: 2021)
- Parole boards held fewer hearings and failed to say "yes" more often, ultimately approving fewer people for parole during the pandemic (Created: 2021)
- More people were released from prison in 2019 than during the pandemic (Created: 2021)
- Mass incarceration added to COVID-19 caseloads in the summer of 2020 in nonmetro counties with the most incarcerated people per square mile (Created: 2020)
- Community spread of COVID-19 across county lines: County caseloads grew faster in "BEA economic areas" with more incarceration (Created: 2020)
- Jail populations are returning to pre-pandemic levels, despite rising COVID-19 case rates across the country (Created: 2020)
- While some state prison populations continue to decline, efforts to reduce prison populations have slowed and even reversed in some states (Created: 2020)
