COVID-19
Prison and jail responses to the pandemic
- Prison transfers rise and fall as New York prison officials respond to COVID-19 and new "proximity laws" (Created: 2025)
- Jail populations in Indian country continue to rebound from COVID-19 pandemic lows (Created: 2024)
- Vaccine policies varied greatly across jurisdictions (Created: 2022)
- While some COVID-19 mitigation tactics were almost universally implemented, others were severely underused in prisons (Created: 2022)
- The largest state prison systems performed the most COVID-19 tests, but testing was uneven across states (Created: 2022)
- Eligibility criteria for expedited COVID-19 release varied by state (Created: 2022)
- The number of active "pending" cases in state criminal courts has grown exponentially since the early pandemic (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)
- 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)
- The prison population drops during the pandemic are the result of fewer admissions, not increasing releases (Created: 2022)
- Most prison populations dropped early in the pandemic, but have since leveled off (Created: 2022)
- In NYC, the early-pandemic effort to reduce overcrowded jail populations has largely been abandoned (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)
- 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)
- State prison populations haven't dropped nearly enough during the pandemic, any many are actually growing in 2021 (Created: 2021)
- State prison systems continue to fail during COVID-19 (Created: 2021)
- Most states fail to provide the bare minimum behind bars (Created: 2021)
- Many prison systems prioritized vaccinations for incarcerated people, but others still lag behind (Created: 2021)
- Across the country, prisons have seen higher COVID-19 infection and mortality rates than their surrounding states (Created: 2021)
- Few states made significant efforts to reduce prison populations (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)
- More people were released from prison in 2019 than during 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)
- Community spread of COVID-19 across county lines: County caseloads grew faster in "BEA economic areas" with more incarceration (Created: 2020)
- 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)
- 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)
Events
- July 9, 2026:
Join the Prison Policy Initiative, Latino Justice, and the MacArthur Justice Center for a powerful webinar focused on the parole board process and the case for the presumption of release. It will begin with a firsthand account from Frank Silva and his interview for freedom followed by Clinical Professor of Law Heidi Rummel and the legality of “presumption of release,” and how California’s framework has shifted the burden of proof.
Register here
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