The Unequal Toll of COVID-19 Deaths in Prisons

这个项目深入研究了新冠肺炎大流行期间美国监狱的死亡率。新冠肺炎给美国各地的监狱人口带来了毁灭性的损失。被监禁的人感染的风险是普通人的五倍，死亡的风险是普通人的三倍。最近的国家数据收集项目既缺乏关于死亡人数的人口统计信息，也缺乏关于死亡集中地点的特征的设施一级的详细信息。监狱周围的这种数据收集差距给新冠肺炎带来的不平等影响，以及一些监狱里的人过得更好的机制留下了悬而未决的问题。该项目的发现首次对美国监狱的总死亡人数进行了系统的统计--这是未来规划弹性努力的必要基础。首先，在大流行期间(2020年至2022年)，新冠肺炎、其他自然原因和非自然原因造成的监狱设施级死亡风险与前几年(2013年至2019年)监狱设施级死亡风险是否有显著不同？第二，人口特征与监狱中的死亡有何关联？大流行期间的这些关联与前几年有何不同？第三，国家和设施一级的特征(包括新冠肺炎缓解反应和剥夺监禁)与大流行期间的死亡有何关联？这些问题是通过收集(通过各州的公共记录请求)并分析每个州惩教部和联邦监狱管理局2013至2022年间在押人员所有死亡的月度设施级数据来解决的。这些数据得到了通过ICPSR获得的2013年数据、通过司法统计局获得的2014-2019年计数数据以及通过国家死亡指数(NDI)、生命统计数据和法医办公室获得的2020-2022年数据的补充和验证。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project takes an in-depth look at mortality in U.S. prisons during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has taken a devastating toll on prison populations across the United States. Incarcerated people have experienced a risk of infection five times higher and risk of death three times higher than people in the general population. Recent national data collection projects lack both demographic information on deaths and facility-level details about the characteristics of places where deaths have been concentrated. Such data collection gaps around prisons leave open questions about both the unequal repercussions of COVID-19 and the mechanisms by which people in some institutions fared better than others. Findings from this project provide the first systematic accounting of the total mortality toll in prisons across the United States—a necessary foundation for future planning for resiliency efforts.Three research questions are investigated. First, did the risk of facility-level death in prison—from COVID-19, other natural causes, and unnatural causes—during the pandemic (2020-2022) differ significantly from the facility-level risk of death in prisons in prior years (2013-2019)? Second, how are demographic characteristics associated with deaths in prisons, and did these associations differ during the pandemic from prior years? Third, how are state- and facility-level characteristics (including COVID-19 mitigation responses and carceral deprivation) associated with deaths during the pandemic? These questions are addressed by collecting (via state-by-state public records requests) and analyzing monthly facility-level data on all deaths among people in custody of each state Department of Corrections and the Federal Bureau of Prisons between 2013 and 2022. These data are supplemented and verified with 2013 data available through ICPSR, 2014-2019 count data available through the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and 2020-2022 data available through the National Death Index (NDI), vital statistics, and medical examiners’ offices.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.