By January 2024, the COVID-19 pandemic claimed more than 1.1 million deaths in the United States (U.S.). People in prison are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 as they have no ability to socially distance, secure masks, disinfect their environment or have as much access to tests or vaccinations as is available in the community. In addition, many of these individuals reside in crowded conditions with little ventilation, which makes the spread of the virus more likely. In this paper, we used data from two projects, including the UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data Project and the COVID Prison Project, and supplemented these with publicly available data to examine the number of deaths and infection rates caused by COVID-19 among people in prison and prison staff in the U.S., as reported by the population of those facilities. We found that the incidence of infections and death rates in prisons were affected by crowding, prison security type (maximum, medium, minimum, or mixed) and level of prison (state or federal). People in prison who were less likely to have as much human contact (e.g., maximum-security prisons) were also less likely to be afflicted with COVID-19. People in prison were twice as likely to be infected by COVID-19 but had a similar death rate compared to the general public. Prison overcrowding increased the infection rate. The most effective state health policy was to quarantine people who had close contact with confirmed, positive cases. Further, state prisons demonstrated a higher death rate compared to federal prisons. Greater efforts to ameliorate COVID-19 and similar pathogens should be directed at state prisons with lower-level security and prisons with closer contact with the community. Quarantining close-contacts and restricting movements were the most effective state-level responses to reduce infections in prisons during April 2020 to April 2022.

截至 2024 年 1 月，COVID-19 大流行已导致美国 (US) 超过 110 万人死亡。监狱里的人特别容易感染 COVID-19，因为他们没有能力保持社交距离、戴口罩、对环境进行消毒，也没有能力获得社区内尽可能多的检测或疫苗接种。此外，其中许多人居住在拥挤的环境中，通风不良，这使得病毒更有可能传播。在本文中，我们使用了来自两个项目的数据，包括加州大学洛杉矶分校法学院的新冠病毒监狱数据项目和新冠病毒监狱项目，并用公开数据作为补充，以检查在美国的监狱和监狱工作人员，根据这些设施的人口报告。我们发现监狱中的感染发生率和死亡率受到拥挤程度、监狱安全类型（最高、中等、最低或混合）和监狱级别（州或联邦）的影响。监狱中不太可能与人接触的人（例如最高安全级别的监狱）也不太可能感染 COVID-19。与普通公众相比，监狱中的人感染 COVID-19 的可能性是普通民众的两倍，但死亡率相似。监狱人满为患，导致感染率上升。最有效的州卫生政策是隔离与确诊阳性病例有密切接触的人。此外，与联邦监狱相比，州立监狱的死亡率更高。应针对安全级别较低的州立监狱和与社区接触较密切的监狱，加大力度改善 COVID-19 和类似病原体。隔离密切接触者和限制活动是2020年4月至2022年4月期间减少监狱感染的最有效的州级应对措施。