Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on prisons

On any given day, 2.3 million people are incarcerated in 6,000 facilities in the United States, presenting officials with the difficult task of preventing coronavirus outbreaks among prisoners and staff.^[64][65] Prisoners often sleep close together. Many prisons have poor sanitation, and alcohol-based hand sanitizer is often prohibited for inmates.^[66][67]

The vast majority of these prisoners are in state or local custody.

Between March 22–26, 2020, 23 inmates escaped and at least one inmate tested positive for COVID-19 in each of two prisons. Judges ordered the liberation of thousands of prison inmates, and there were calls to release all medically vulnerable inmates.^[68]

As of April 8, 2020, there were at least 1,300 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 32 deaths in prisons and jails across the United States.^[69]

On December 18, 2020, the Associated Press and The Marshall Project stated that one in five prisoners in the United States had been infected with the COVID virus. This was over four times the infection rate of the general population around the time of the report. In some states, half of prisoners had been infected.^[70]

COVID-19 has also spread at an elevated rate within immigration detention facilities in the United States.

Former Attorney General William Barr announced on March 26, 2020, that he had instructed federal prisons to free some inmates to lessen the impact of the coronavirus epidemic. This order favors inmates over 60 who have not been convicted of violent or sex crimes. This applies to about 2,000 of the 170,000 inmates in the federal correctional system. At the time of Barr's announcement, there had been about a dozen cases of COVID-19 among federal prisoners and staff.^[71] A high-profile release was Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman of President Trump, who, at age 71, left a federal prison in Pennsylvania to serve the rest of his sentence in home confinement due to coronavirus concerns.^[72] Another high-profile released prisoner was Rita Crundwell (68), the biggest municipal embezzler in U.S. history, went to live on her brother's farm.

Patrick Jones, a 49-year old inmate at a minimum-security prison in

On July 14, 2020, Daniel Lewis Lee became the first federal prisoner to be executed in 17 years. His victims' family had sued to delay the execution, citing their desire to witness it but asserting their fears of contracting COVID-19. Several days before the scheduled execution, a court ruled that it could be rescheduled to allow his victims' family to attend, but the U.S. Supreme Court subsequently denied that extension.^[75][76]

On January 7, 2021, Joseph Lee Fultz arrived at a federal prison in Indiana to begin a 27-year sentence. There was a COVID-19 outbreak at the prison, and Fultz was diagnosed within days. Although the government recorded his health status as "recovered," he died in his cell on February 8, 2021, raising questions about the overall accuracy of data from federal prisons.^[77]

Although as of May 13, 2020, Black prisoners make up 1⁄3 of the prison population in Missouri, they have had 58% of the positive tests for the state's prison population.^[78] 43 prison agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Prisons, have refused to provide any demographic information (besides ages) of prisoners affected by COVID-19. This makes knowing which prisons have larger populations of non-English speaking prisoners who need help understanding preventive measures, such as social distancing, much more difficult.^[79] Populations that are more likely to be incarcerated are generally disproportionately affected by pre-existing health conditions such as HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis. This creates high concentrations of these diseases within prison populations, with those affected by them having a higher susceptibility to contracting COVID.^[80]

Many incarcerated people have preexisting conditions that worsen within prisons because of the settings such as lack of proper sanitation procedures and sharing close spaces in many already overcrowded prisons.^[81] The cost of medical services disincentivizes prisons from responding to incarcerated people's illnesses.^[81] Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, prisons had difficulties with managing incarcerated people's illnesses for reasons such as the inability to triage.^[81] "Punitive solitary confinement" has also been employed as opposed to medical isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[82] With the use of solitary confinement, incarcerated people are less likely to report any sickness because they do not want to experience solitary confinement since it is often enforced in inhumane ways that have many damaging effects, especially emotional/psychological ones.^[82] This means that there are incarcerated people with unreported symptoms interacting with other incarcerated people and staff, which leads to higher chances of the spread of illness.^[82] With the COVID-19 pandemic, there is also a lack of testing, trained and informed health services staff, and treatment resources available.^[82]

In the past decades, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has turned to private, for profit companies to house the growing detainee population. Facilities operated by private companies are not subject to the same standards of accountability and oversight as government-operated facilities.^[83] Prior to the coronavirus, conditions in ICE detention facilities were described as overcrowded, unsanitary, understaffed, and dangerous.^[84] Detainees were not given sufficient access to medical care, and outbreaks of diseases such as mumps occurred.^[85] Over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, ICE has reported that 7,583 detention center detainees have tested positive for COVID-19, and 8 have died (as of 12/03/2020).^[86] However, ICE data has been criticized for having gaps and flaws.^[87]

In March, detainees at several U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities went on strike to demand sanitary supplies.^[88] Federal judges in California and Pennsylvania have ordered ICE to release several detainees who have sued. Lawsuits are pending in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. As of April 2, there were 35,000 people in ICE custody.^[89]

Twenty-seven migrant children held by the Office of Refugee Resettlement have tested positive for COVID-19 as of April 13. Six have recovered; three are in isolation in Texas and Illinois.^[90]

In April and May, a series of letters were penned and signed by detainees in neighboring detention facilities in Eloy, AZ. The letters described a lack of food, medical treatment, and adequate safety measures as well as inhumane conditions in quarantine. One detainee stated they were going to ask to be deported in order to escape the facility's conditions.^[91][92]

The Vera Institute of Justice released a peer-reviewed model based on ICE data from late May. Of the 80,655 people Vera estimates to be held in ICE detention at any point over a 60-day time period, they calculate that 15,549 would contract COVID-19. 235 of these would require hospitalization. 2-17 people would die in the first 60 days.^[93]

On March 21, it was reported that 50 inmates had been released in

• Alameda County: On March 20, Alameda County officials announced that 247 people would be released from Santa Rita Jail, located in Dublin.^[96]
• Los Angeles County: On March 17, the county Sheriff's Department announced that it had reduced the inmate population by 600 during the previous two weeks in an attempt to keep prisoners from being infected by coronavirus.^[97]
• San Diego County: On March 16, the Sheriff's Department said it had started reducing the number of people being accepted into the county's seven jails and had received approval for early release of some prisoners. Other measures included in-cell meals, a suspension of visitation, and suspension of jail programs.^[98]
• Santa Barbara County: As of April 17, the county jail had released 324 prisoners. The
  on a Friday night that one inmate has tested positive for COVID-19.^[99]
• As of July 17, 39 prison inmates have died in California prisons; about half of these were disabled.[100]
• From March 31 to June 6, there has been 42,107 confirmed cases of COVID-19 along with 510 deaths from state and federal prisons with a case rate of 3,251 per 100,000 prisoners; making it 5.5 times higher than the case rate of US population which is 587 per 100,000.^[101]

The

On March 21, CNN reported that three inmates tested positive for COVID-19 at Lee State Prison in Leesburg. Three other prisoners were under observation with similar symptoms.^[104]

Testing for COVID-19 revealed the first case of infection on March 22 in Cook County Jail, Chicago. 10% of the 5,000 inmates were released as a cautionary measure, but the number of infections had risen to 134 by March 30. Fifteen inmates and eleven staff have tested positive at other facilities in the state, with at least 80 waiting for test results. One prisoner died on March 30 at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois.^[105]

As of April 9, six out of nine deaths among prisoners in federal prisons in the United States had occurred within a single prison at Oakdale, Louisiana.^[106]

Twenty-seven youths aged 13 to 20, and 14 staff have tested positive in Louisiana's four secure juvenile detention facilities—the Bridge City Center near New Orleans, the Acadiana Center for Youth in Bunkie, the Swanson Center for Youth in Columbia, and the Swanson Center for Youth in Monroe. Children are confined to their rooms, they do not get schooling or visits from case managers or clergy.^[107]

The first prison case of COVID-19 in Massachusetts was reported on March 21 at Massachusetts Treatment Center. The prisoner and his roommate were placed in quarantine on March 19.^[108] As of March 31, 17 prisoners had tested positive at the Massachusetts Treatment Center as well as six Department of Correction staff—four at the treatment center, one at MCI-Shirley, and one at the Department of Correction central office. Two prisoners have tested positive at the Middlesex Jail and House of Correction in Billerica, as have 14 employees in the state's county jail systems.^[109]

The Michigan Department of Corrections banned visitors to prisons, along with prohibiting any volunteers from working in them. Staff at prisons were required to have their temperatures taken and them to be under 100.4 °F (38.0 °C) along with other measures.^[110] The Michigan Career and Technical Institute suspended all programs until April 5.^[111]

On March 24, a 31-year-old male Mexican national in custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Hackensack, New Jersey, was held in isolation after being tested positive for COVID-19. He was the first migrant to test positive, and ICE suspended the intake of new migrants.^[112]

After a guard and a prisoner tested positive for coronavirus at the Rikers Island prison, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio stated that city officials will identify individuals for release, including persons arrested for minor crimes and those most vulnerable to infection due to chronic health problems. In addition to the cases at Rikers, other prisons in the state, including Sing Sing, have recorded positive tests among prisoners, and one member of the correction's department has died from the virus.^[97] Rikers Island released 51 non-criminals with underlying conditions on April 14.^[113]

As of March 25, 75 New York City inmates had tested positive for COVID-19 and 37 city corrections staff members, up from 50 inmates and 30 staffers the previous day.^[68]

The Wayne County Health Department reported their first recorded death on April 23 after testing positive on April 18, and that as of April 20, Neuse Correctional Institution had approximately 450 of its 700 inmates test positive, and all inmates were to be tested; few reported symptoms. All of the staff could be tested as well. As of April 24, positive cases had risen to 465.^[114]

Pender Correctional Institution, in Burgaw reported the state's first death in a prison.^[115]

As of December 13, 6,059 cases, more than 1 in 6 people in custody, has tested positive for COVID-19.^[116]

On April 8, the National Guard arrived at Elkton Federal Prison in Columbiana County to assist the medical staff when a large number of prisoners became ill with the virus.^[117] On April 18, the National Guard and Highway Patrol arrived at the state prison in Marion county to assist with "mission critical functions" after infections of correctional workers and prisoners.^[118] By April 19, over 1800 prisoners at Marion Correctional Institution, approximately 3/4ths of the population, plus 100 staff had tested positive.^[119] Overall, the prison system had almost 2500 cases by April 19, representing almost a fifth of Ohio's cases.^[119]

On April 22, the Marion County prison was first-ranked as the hot-spot for the virus in the country, followed by the Pickaway Correctional Institution. Marion County was first in cases per capita in the nation, while Pickaway County was fourth.^[120] The Ohio prison system is designed to hold about 35,000 inmates, but held about 49,000 in April 2020.^[121]

On April 22, federal judge James S. Gwin ordered the Elkton prison to identify vulnerable inmates and transfer them from the facility. He also ordered officials to "evaluate each subclass member's eligibility for transfer out of Elkton through any means, including but not limited to compassionate release, parole or community supervision, transfer furlough or non-transfer furlough within two weeks". He noted, "with the shockingly limited available testing and the inability to distance inmates, COVID-19 is going to continue to spread, not only among the inmate population, but also among the staff". He condemned the Federal Department of Corrections, asking: "Why has the Justice Department allocated Elkton an entirely insignificant number of tests while Ohio has been able to pull off mass testing across not only Marion, but at multiple institutions?"^[122]

Due to ongoing public health concerns related to the coronavirus, on March 13, the Eastern State Penitentiary (a historic site which stopped operating as a prison in 1971) was closed to the public.^[123]

Nine prisoners escaped from a minimum-security women's prison on March 23, the same day a fellow inmate tested positive for COVID-19. Three were captured on the Crow Creek Indian Reservation and one was captured in Rapid City. It was not immediately clear if the diagnosis prompted the prisoners to escape.^[124]

As of July 2020^[update], at least 84 inmates have died in Texas prisons.^[125]

Fourteen inmates escaped from the county jail in Yakima County on March 23. They used a table to break down an exit door and then climbed a fence. The U.S. Marshals Service offered rewards of up to $1,000 for information leading to the arrests of these escaped inmates.^[124]

The first COVID-19 positive case in the Wisconsin state prison system, an employee at Waupun Correctional Institution, was reported on March 18 by warden Brian Foster. Inmate advocacy groups called on the Department of Corrections and Governor Tony Evers to change prison policies to protect prisoners and guards during the epidemic.^[126]

Reuters reported that Venezuela's notoriously overcrowded and unsanitary prisons could spread the coronavirus "like a fast-moving fire." Venezuelan prisons frequently lack bathrooms, people sleep on floors, and many inmates spend their days without shirts or shoes on, in part to combat the heat of windowless facilities.^[127] This has caused US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to demand the Maduro government release six Citgo executives, held in prison since 2017, on humanitarian grounds.^[128][129] Pompeo said that all six men have weakened immune systems and "face a grave health risk if they become infected" with COVID-19.^[129] The Venezuelan Medical Federation asked for the release of political prisoners in the country, specifically Roberto Marrero, Juan Requesens and other lawmakers.^[130]

On March 18, 84 out of 518 inmates escaped from a prison in San Carlos, Zulia, after restrictions against the pandemic were announced, including jail visits. Mayor Bladimir Labrador declared that ten prisoners were killed during the prison break and that two policemen were detained for complicity. According to Carlos Nieto Palma from the NGO Ventana a la Libertad, the suspension of visits directly affects the prisoner's nutrition, given that there was no state-sponsored program to feed them.^[131] The NGO Provea denounced "grave human rights violations" after a military spokesperson announced the "neutralization" of 35 escapees. State authorities later declared that there were eight deaths.^[132]