A State-by-State Look at Coronavirus in Prisons by The Marshall Project

We publish here an interesting article in which data about the spread of Coronavirus in American detention facilities are presented. These data were collected within the Marshall Project, that, since march, has been monitoring federal and state prisons across the United States. The data are divided into two groups: the first data set concerns the Coronavirus spread among detainees, while the second data set gives information about contagions and deaths among prison staff. As you can easily see, by march 27, 34.584 imprisoned persons had tested positive for the disease, and 18.303 between them needed to be recovered. At the same date, 454 prisoners had died for Coronavirus-related causes. Yet astonishing, these numbers are considered to be underestimated, because in many States not enough people have been tested. The same can be said about prison staff: in the most recent weeks, only seventeen States have been releasing information on the number of their staff member tested for Coronavirus. Even when we do know about positive cases, the count only includes the employees who voluntarily called out sick. Relating to the data we have, 7.900 prison staff members have tested positive, and 33 deaths have been recorded.  

(Cecilia Pagella)