The National Prisoner Statistics (NPS) data collection began in 1926 in response to a congressional mandate to gather information on persons incarcerated in state and federal prisons. Originally under the auspices of the U.S. Census Bureau, the collection moved to the Bureau of Prisons in 1950, and then in 1971 to the National Criminal Justice Information and Statistics Service, the precursor to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) which was established in 1979. From 1979 to 2013, the Census Bureau was the NPS data collection agent. In 2014, the collection was competitively bid in conjunction with the National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP), since many of the respondents for NPS and NCRP are the same. The contract was awarded to Abt Associates, Inc. The NPS is administered to 51 respondents. Before 2001, the District of Columbia was also a respondent, but responsibility for housing the District of Columbia's sentenced prisoners was transferred to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and by yearend 2001 the District of Columbia no longer operated a prison system. The NPS provides an enumeration of persons in state and federal prisons and collects data on key characteristics of the nation's prison population. NPS has been adapted over time to keep pace with the changing information needs of the public, researchers, and federal, state, and local governments.

Jails and Prisons (Correctional Institutions). The Jails and Prisons sub-layer is part of the Emergency Law Enforcement Sector and the Critical Infrastructure Category. A Jail or Prison consists of any facility or location where individuals are regularly and lawfully detained against their will. This includes Federal and State prisons, local jails, and juvenile detention facilities, as well as law enforcement temporary holding facilities. Work camps, including camps operated seasonally, are included if they otherwise meet the definition. A Federal Prison is a facility operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons for the incarceration of individuals. A State Prison is a facility operated by a state, commonwealth, or territory of the US for the incarceration of individuals for a term usually longer than 1 year. A Juvenile Detention Facility is a facility for the incarceration of those who have not yet reached the age of majority (usually 18 years). A Local Jail is a locally administered facility that holds inmates beyond arraignment (usually 72 hours) and is staffed by municipal or county employees. A temporary holding facility, sometimes referred to as a "police lock up" or "drunk tank", is a facility used to detain people prior to arraignment. Locations that are administrative offices only are excluded from the dataset. This definition of Jails is consistent with that used by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in their "National Jail Census", with the exception of "temporary holding facilities", which the DOJ excludes. Locations which function primarily as law enforcement offices are included in this dataset if they have holding cells. If the facility is enclosed with a fence, wall, or structure with a gate around the buildings only, the locations were depicted as "on entity" at the center of the facility. If the facility's buildings are not enclosed, the locations were depicted as "on entity" on the main building or "block face" on the correct street segment. Personal homes, administrative offices, and temporary locations are intended to be excluded from this dataset; however, some personal homes of constables are included due to the fact that many constables work out of their homes. TGS has made a concerted effort to include all correctional institutions. This dataset includes non license restricted data from the following federal agencies: Bureau of Indian Affairs; Bureau of Reclamation; U.S. Park Police; Federal Bureau of Prisons; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; U.S. Marshals Service; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; National Park Service; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This dataset is comprised completely of license free data. The Law Enforcement dataset and the Correctional Institutions dataset were merged into one working file. TGS processed as one file and then separated for delivery purposes. With the merge of the Law Enforcement and the Correctional Institutions datasets, NAICS Codes & Descriptions were assigned based on the facility's main function which was determined by the entity's name, facility type, web research, and state supplied data. In instances where the entity's primary function is both law enforcement and corrections, the NAICS Codes and Descriptions are assigned based on the dataset in which the record is located (i.e., a facility that serves as both a Sheriff's Office and as a jail is designated as [NAICSDESCR]="SHERIFFS' OFFICES (EXCEPT COURT FUNCTIONS ONLY)" in the Law Enforcement layer and as [NAICSDESCR]="JAILS (EXCEPT PRIVATE OPERATION OF)" in the Correctional Institutions layer). Records with "-DOD" appended to the end of the [NAME] value are located on a military base, as defined by the Defense Installation Spatial Data Infrastructure (DISDI) military installations and military range boundaries. "#" and "*" characters were automatically removed from standard fields that TGS populated. Double spaces were replaced by sin

The National Prisoner Statistics (NPS) data collection began in 1926 in response to a congressional mandate to gather information on persons incarcerated in state and federal prisons. Originally under the auspices of the U.S. Census Bureau, the collection moved to the Bureau of Prisons in 1950, and then in 1971 to the National Criminal Justice Information and Statistics Service, the precursor to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) which was established in 1979. From 1979 to 2013, the Census Bureau was the NPS data collection agent. In 2014, the collection was competitively bid in conjunction with the National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP), since many of the respondents for NPS and NCRP are the same. The contract was awarded to Abt Associates, Inc. The NPS is administered to 51 respondents. Before 2001, the District of Columbia was also a respondent, but responsibility for housing the District of Columbia's sentenced prisoners was transferred to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and by yearend 2001 the District of Columbia no longer operated a prison system. The NPS provides an enumeration of persons in state and federal prisons and collects data on key characteristics of the nation's prison population. NPS has been adapted over time to keep pace with the changing information needs of the public, researchers, and federal, state, and local governments.

Overview

The Marshall Project, the nonprofit investigative newsroom dedicated to the U.S. criminal justice system, has partnered with The Associated Press to compile data on the prevalence of COVID-19 infection in prisons across the country. The Associated Press is sharing this data as the most comprehensive current national source of COVID-19 outbreaks in state and federal prisons.

Lawyers, criminal justice reform advocates and families of the incarcerated have worried about what was happening in prisons across the nation as coronavirus began to take hold in the communities outside. Data collected by The Marshall Project and AP shows that hundreds of thousands of prisoners, workers, correctional officers and staff have caught the illness as prisons became the center of some of the country’s largest outbreaks. And thousands of people — most of them incarcerated — have died.

In December, as COVID-19 cases spiked across the U.S., the news organizations also shared cumulative rates of infection among prison populations, to better gauge the total effects of the pandemic on prison populations. The analysis found that by mid-December, one in five state and federal prisoners in the United States had tested positive for the coronavirus -- a rate more than four times higher than the general population.

This data, which is updated weekly, is an effort to track how those people have been affected and where the crisis has hit the hardest.

Methodology and Caveats

The data tracks the number of COVID-19 tests administered to people incarcerated in all state and federal prisons, as well as the staff in those facilities. It is collected on a weekly basis by Marshall Project and AP reporters who contact each prison agency directly and verify published figures with officials.

Each week, the reporters ask every prison agency for the total number of coronavirus tests administered to its staff members and prisoners, the cumulative number who tested positive among staff and prisoners, and the numbers of deaths for each group.

The time series data is aggregated to the system level; there is one record for each prison agency on each date of collection. Not all departments could provide data for the exact date requested, and the data indicates the date for the figures.

To estimate the rate of infection among prisoners, we collected population data for each prison system before the pandemic, roughly in mid-March, in April, June, July, August, September and October. Beginning the week of July 28, we updated all prisoner population numbers, reflecting the number of incarcerated adults in state or federal prisons. Prior to that, population figures may have included additional populations, such as prisoners housed in other facilities, which were not captured in our COVID-19 data. In states with unified prison and jail systems, we include both detainees awaiting trial and sentenced prisoners.

To estimate the rate of infection among prison employees, we collected staffing numbers for each system. Where current data was not publicly available, we acquired other numbers through our reporting, including calling agencies or from state budget documents. In six states, we were unable to find recent staffing figures: Alaska, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, Utah.

To calculate the cumulative COVID-19 impact on prisoner and prison worker populations, we aggregated prisoner and staff COVID case and death data up through Dec. 15. Because population snapshots do not account for movement in and out of prisons since March, and because many systems have significantly slowed the number of new people being sent to prison, it’s difficult to estimate the total number of people who have been held in a state system since March. To be conservative, we calculated our rates of infection using the largest prisoner population snapshots we had during this time period.

As with all COVID-19 data, our understanding of the spread and impact of the virus is limited by the availability of testing. Epidemiology and public health experts say that aside from a few states that have recently begun aggressively testing in prisons, it is likely that there are more cases of COVID-19 circulating undetected in facilities. Sixteen prison systems, including the Federal Bureau of Prisons, would not release information about how many prisoners they are testing.

Corrections departments in Indiana, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota and Wisconsin report coronavirus testing and case data for juvenile facilities; West Virginia reports figures for juvenile facilities and jails. For consistency of comparison with other state prison systems, we removed those facilities from our data that had been included prior to July 28. For these states we have also removed staff data. Similarly, Pennsylvania’s coronavirus data includes testing and cases for those who have been released on parole. We removed these tests and cases for prisoners from the data prior to July 28. The staff cases remain.

About the Data

There are four tables in this data:

• covid_prison_cases.csv contains weekly time series data on tests, infections and deaths in prisons. The first dates in the table are on March 26. Any questions that a prison agency could not or would not answer are left blank.

• prison_populations.csv contains snapshots of the population of people incarcerated in each of these prison systems for whom data on COVID testing and cases are available. This varies by state and may not always be the entire number of people incarcerated in each system. In some states, it may include other populations, such as those on parole or held in state-run jails. This data is primarily for use in calculating rates of testing and infection, and we would not recommend using these numbers to compare the change in how many people are being held in each prison system.

• staff_populations.csv contains a one-time, recent snapshot of the headcount of workers for each prison agency, collected as close to April 15 as possible.

• covid_prison_rates.csv contains the rates of cases and deaths for prisoners. There is one row for every state and federal prison system and an additional row with the National totals.

Queries

The Associated Press and The Marshall Project have created several queries to help you use this data:

Get your state's prison COVID data: Provides each week's data from just your state and calculates a cases-per-100000-prisoners rate, a deaths-per-100000-prisoners rate, a cases-per-100000-workers rate and a deaths-per-100000-workers rate here

Rank all systems' most recent data by cases per 100,000 prisoners here

Find what percentage of your state's total cases and deaths -- as reported by Johns Hopkins University -- occurred within the prison system here

Attribution

In stories, attribute this data to: “According to an analysis of state prison cases by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit investigative newsroom dedicated to the U.S. criminal justice system, and The Associated Press.”

Contributors

Many reporters and editors at The Marshall Project and The Associated Press contributed to this data, including: Katie Park, Tom Meagher, Weihua Li, Gabe Isman, Cary Aspinwall, Keri Blakinger, Jake Bleiberg, Andrew R. Calderón, Maurice Chammah, Andrew DeMillo, Eli Hager, Jamiles Lartey, Claudia Lauer, Nicole Lewis, Humera Lodhi, Colleen Long, Joseph Neff, Michelle Pitcher, Alysia Santo, Beth Schwartzapfel, Damini Sharma, Colleen Slevin, Christie Thompson, Abbie VanSickle, Adria Watson, Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

Questions

If you have questions about the data, please email The Marshall Project at info+covidtracker@themarshallproject.org or file a Github issue.

To learn more about AP's data journalism capabilities for publishers, corporations and financial institutions, go here or email kromano@ap.org.

This open-access geospatial dataset (downloadable in csv or shapefile format) contains a total of 11 environmental indicators calculated for 1865 U.S. prisons. This consists of all active state- and federally-operated prisons according to the Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data (HIFLD), last updated June 2022. This dataset includes both raw values and percentiles for each indicator. Percentiles denote a way to rank prisons among each other, where the number represents the percentage of prisons that are equal to or have a lower ranking than that prison. Higher percentile values indicate higher vulnerability to that specific environmental burden compared to all the other prisons. Full descriptions of how each indicator was calculated and the datasets used can be found here: https://github.com/GeospatialCentroid/NASA-prison-EJ/blob/main/doc/indicator_metadata.md.

From these raw indicator values and percentiles, we also developed three individual component scores to summarize similar indicators, and to then create a single vulnerability index (methods based on other EJ screening tools such as Colorado Enviroscreen, CalEnviroScreen and EPA’s EJ Screen). The three component scores include climate vulnerability, environmental exposures and environmental effects. Climate vulnerability factors reflect climate change risks that have been associated with health impacts and includes flood risk, wildfire risk, heat exposure and canopy cover indicators. Environmental exposures reflect variables of different types of pollution people may come into contact with (but not a real-time exposure to pollution) and includes ozone, particulate matter (PM 2.5), traffic proximity and pesticide use. Environmental effects indicators are based on the proximity of toxic chemical facilities and includes proximity to risk management plan (RMP) facilities, National Priority List (NPL)/Superfund facilities, and hazardous waste facilities. Component scores were calculated by taking the geometric mean of the indicator percentiles. Using the geometric mean was most appropriate for our dataset since many values may be related (e.g., canopy cover and temperature are known to be correlated).

To calculate a final, standardized vulnerability score to compare overall environmental burdens at prisons across the U.S., we took the average of each component score and then converted those values to a percentile rank. While this index only compares environmental burdens among prisons and is not comparable to non-prison sites/communities, it will be able to heighten awareness of prisons most vulnerable to negative environmental impacts at county, state and national scales. As an open-access dataset it also provides new opportunities for other researchers, journalists, activists, government officials and others to further analyze the data for their needs and make comparisons between prisons and other communities. This is made even easier as we produced the methodology for this project as an open-source code base so that others can apply the code to calculate individual indicators for any spatial boundaries of interest. The codebase can be found on GitHub (https://github.com/GeospatialCentroid/NASA-prison-EJ) and is also published via Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/record/8306856).

This data collection includes tabulations of annual adult admissions to federal and state correctional institutions by race. Data are provided for the years 1926 to 1986 and include tabulations for prisons in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as federal prison totals and United States totals. The figures were derived from a voluntary reporting program in which each state, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons reported summary and detailed statistics as a part of the National Prisoner Statistics series. Individual state and United States population figures according to racial categories also are provided.

This survey provides nationally representative data on persons held in state prisons and is similar to surveys conducted in 1974 (ICPSR 7811), 1979 (ICPSR 7856), and 1986 (ICPSR 8711). The survey was designed to provide information on individual characteristics of prison inmates, their current offenses and sentences, characteristics of victims, criminal histories, prior drug and alcohol use and treatment, gun possession and use, gang membership, family background, and prison activities, programs, and services.

Jails and Prisons (Correctional Institutions) in Kansas The Jails and Prisons sub-layer is part of the Emergency Law Enforcement Sector and the Critical Infrastructure Category. A Jail or Prison consists of any facility or location where individuals are regularly and lawfully detained against their will. This includes Federal and State prisons, local jails, and juvenile detention facilities, as well as law enforcement temporary holding facilities. Work camps, including camps operated seasonally, are included if they otherwise meet the definition. A Federal Prison is a facility operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons for the incarceration of individuals. A State Prison is a facility operated by a state, commonwealth, or territory of the US for the incarceration of individuals for a term usually longer than 1 year. A Juvenile Detention Facility is a facility for the incarceration of those who have not yet reached the age of majority (usually 18 years). A Local Jail is a locally administered facility that holds inmates beyond arraignment (usually 72 hours) and is staffed by municipal or county employees. A temporary holding facility, sometimes referred to as a "police lock up" or "drunk tank", is a facility used to detain people prior to arraignment. Locations that are administrative offices only are excluded from the dataset. This definition of Jails is consistent with that used by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in their "National Jail Census", with the exception of "temporary holding facilities", which the DOJ excludes. If the facility is enclosed with a fence, wall, or structure with a gate around the buildings only, the locations were depicted as ONENTITY at the entrance. If the facility's buildings are not enclosed, the locations were depicted as ONENTITY on the building or BLOCKFACE on the correct street segment. Personal homes, administrative offices and temporary locations are intended to be excluded from this dataset, but a few may be included. Personal homes of constables may exist due to the fact that many constables work out of their home. With the merge of the Law Enforcement and the Correctional Institutions datasets, the NAICS Descriptions were assigned based on the facility's main function, which were determined by the entity's name, facility type, web research and state supplied data. For records where the entity's name represents both datasets, the NAICS Description was assigned based on the specifications of the dataset the record is assigned to. text fields in this dataset have been set to all upper case to facilitate consistent database engine search results. All diacritics (e.g., the German umlaut or the Spanish tilde) have been replaced with their closest equivalent English character to facilitate use with database systems that may not support diacritics. The currentness of this dataset is indicated by the [CONTDATE] attribute. Based upon this attribute, the oldest record dates from 2006/06/27 and the newest record dates from 2008/03/06

This census provides information on county and municipal jails facilities in the United States and their administration. For all jails, the data include number of prisoners and their reason for being held, age and sex of prisoners, maximum sentence that could be served in the facility, facility capacity and age, types of security available, and operating expenditures. For jails in counties and municipalities with populations of 25,000 or more, data are supplied on quarterly jail population, age of cells, and availability of service facilities and programs for inmates.

This collection provides nationally representative data on persons held prior to trial and on convicted offenders serving sentences in local jails or awaiting transfer to state prisons. Data cover individual characteristics of jail inmates, current offenses, sentences and time served, criminal histories, jail activities, conditions and programs, prior drug and alcohol use and treatment, and health care services provided while in jail. Part 1, Numeric Data, contains numeric data for all questions in the survey, while Part 2, Alphanumeric Data, consists of non-numeric answers to the "Other, Specify" selection available for some of the questions.

Investigator(s): Bureau of Justice Statistics The National Jail Census was conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Excluded from the census were federal- or state-administered facilities, including the combined jail-prison systems in Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Data include jail population by reason being held, age (juvenile or adult) and sex, maximum sentence that can be served in the facility, available services, type of security available, facility capacity, age, construction and renovation of the facility, employment, and operating expenditures.Years Produced: Every 5 years

This data collection includes tabulations of annual adult admissions to federal and state correctional institutions by gender for the years 1926 through 1987. The two data files have identical structures: Part 1 includes information on male admissions, and Part 2 includes information on female admissions. The 3,348 cases in each part include one case for each of the 62 years of the collection for each of the following 54 categories: the 50 states, the District of Columbia, federal institutional totals, state cumulative totals, and United States totals (the sum of the federal and state cumulative totals). The figures were drawn from a voluntary reporting program in which each state, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons reported summary and detailed statistics, as part of the National Prisoner Statistics reporting series. Each file also includes individual state and United States general population figures.

This data collection supplies annual data on the size of the prison population and the size of the general population in the United States for the period 1925 to 1986. These yearend counts include tabulations for prisons in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as the federal prisons, and are intended to provide a measure of the overall size of the prison population. The figures were provided from a voluntary reporting program in which each state, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons reported summary statistics as part of the statistical information on prison populations in the United States.

This dataset integrates data from multiple publicly available sources to enhance the social and environmental analytical potential of the 2017 and 2020 HIFLD prison boundaries datasets. The HIFLD prison boundary feature class contains secure detention facilities. These facilities range in jurisdiction from federal (excluding military) to local governments. Polygon geometry is used to describe the extent of where the incarcerated population is located (fence lines or building footprints). This feature class’s attribution describes many physical and social characteristics of detention facilities in the United States and some of its territories. The attribution for this feature class was populated by open source search methodologies of authoritative sources. We have manually coded the corresponding EPA Facility Registry Service (FRS) ID number to every facility for which we could find a reasonable match (source: https://www.epa.gov/frs/frs-facilities-state-single-file-csv-download). This FRS ID number enables finding corresponding environmental permits, inspections, violations, and enforcement actions. We have additionally created additional socially significant categories: ICE facilities, private prisons. Purpose: This feature class contains secure detention facilities with EPA FRS ID and additional socially relevant variables for research on the environmental injustices of mass incarceration by Carceral Ecologies.

Jails and Prisons (Correctional Institutions). The Jails and Prisons sub-layer is part of the Emergency Law Enforcement Sector and the Critical Infrastructure Category. A Jail or Prison consists of any facility or _location where individuals are regularly and lawfully detained against their will. This includes Federal and State prisons, local jails, and juvenile detention facilities, as well as law enforcement temporary holding facilities. Work camps, including camps operated seasonally, are included if they otherwise meet the definition. A Federal Prison is a facility operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons for the incarceration of individuals. A State Prison is a facility operated by a state, commonwealth, or territory of the US for the incarceration of individuals for a term usually longer than 1 year. A Juvenile Detention Facility is a facility for the incarceration of those who have not yet reached the age of majority (usually 18 years). A Local Jail is a locally administered facility that holds inmates beyond arraignment (usually 72 hours) and is staffed by municipal or county employees. A temporary holding facility, sometimes referred to as a "police lock up" or "drunk tank", is a facility used to detain people prior to arraignment. Locations that are administrative offices only are excluded from the dataset. This definition of Jails is consistent with that used by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in their "National Jail Census", with the exception of "temporary holding facilities", which the DOJ excludes. Locations which function primarily as law enforcement offices are included in this dataset if they have holding cells. If the facility is enclosed with a fence, wall, or structure with a gate around the buildings only, the locations were depicted as "on entity" at the center of the facility. If the facility's buildings are not enclosed, the locations were depicted as "on entity" on the main building or "block face" on the correct street segment. Personal homes, administrative offices, and temporary locations are intended to be excluded from this dataset. TGS has made a concerted effort to include all correctional institutions. This dataset includes non license restricted data from the following federal agencies: Bureau of Indian Affairs; Bureau of Reclamation; U.S. Park Police; Federal Bureau of Prisons; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; U.S. Marshals Service; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; National Park Service; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This dataset is comprised completely of license free data. The Law Enforcement dataset and the Correctional Institutions dataset were merged into one working file. TGS processed as one file and then separated for delivery purposes. With the merge of the Law Enforcement and the Correctional Institutions datasets, NAICS Codes & Descriptions were assigned based on the facility's main function which was determined by the entity's name, facility type, web research, and state supplied data. In instances where the entity's primary function is both law enforcement and corrections, the NAICS Codes and Descriptions are assigned based on the dataset in which the record is located (i.e., a facility that serves as both a Sheriff's Office and as a jail is designated as [NAICSDESCR]="SHERIFFS' OFFICES (EXCEPT COURT FUNCTIONS ONLY)" in the Law Enforcement layer and as [NAICSDESCR]="JAILS (EXCEPT PRIVATE OPERATION OF)" in the Correctional Institutions layer). Records with "-DOD" appended to the end of the [NAME] value are located on a military base, as defined by the Defense Installation Spatial Data Infrastructure (DISDI) military installations and military range boundaries. "#" and "*" characters were automatically removed from standard fields that TGS populated. Double spaces were replaced by single spaces in these same fields. Text fields in this dataset have been set to all upper case to facilitate consistent database engine search results. All diacritics (e.g., the German umlaut or the Spanish tilde) have been replaced with their closest equivalent English character to facilitate use with database systems that may not support diacritics. The currentness of this dataset is indicated by the [CONTDATE] field. Based on the values in this field, the oldest record dates from 12/27/2004 and the newest record dates from 09/08/2009

Summary: This is a collection of publicly reported data relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic scraped from state and federal prisons in the United States. Data are collected each night from every state and federal correctional agency’s site that has data available. Data from Massachusetts come directly from the ACLU Massachusetts COVID-19 website (https://data.aclum.org/sjc-12926-tracker/), not the Massachusetts DOC website. Data from a small number of states come from Recidiviz (https://www.recidiviz.org/) whose team manually collects data from these states. Not all dates are available for some states due to websites being down or changes to the website that cause some data to be missed by the scraper.The data primarily cover the number of people incarcerated in these facilities who have tested positive, negative, recovered, and have died from COVID-19. Many - but not all - states also provide this information for staff members. This dataset includes every variable that any state makes available. While there are dozens of variables in the data, most apply to only a small number of states or a single state.The data is primarily at the facility-date unit, meaning that each row represents a single prison facility on a single date. The date is the date we scraped the data (we do so each night between 9pm-3am EST) and not necessarily the date the data was updated. While many states update daily, some do so less frequently. As such, you may see some dates for certain states contain the same values. A small number of states do not provide facility-level data, or do so for only a subset of all the variables they make available. In these cases we have also collected state-level data and made that available separately. Please note: When facility data is available, the state-level file combines the aggregated facility-level data with any state-level data that is available. You should therefore use this file when doing a state-level analysis instead of aggregating the facility-level data, as some states report values only at the state level (these states may still have some data at the facility-level), and some states report cumulative numbers at the state level but do not report them at the facility level. As a result, when we identify this, we typically add the cumulative information to the state level file. The state level file is still undergoing quality checks and will be released soon.These data were scraped from nearly all state and federal prison websites that make their data available each night for several months, and we continue to collect data. Over time some states have changed what variables are available, both adding and removing some variables, as well as the definition of variables. For all states and time periods you are using this data for, please carefully examine the data to detect these kinds of issues. We have spent extensive time doing a careful check of the data to remove any issues we find, primarily ones that could be caused by a scraper not working properly. However, please check all data for issues before using it. Contact us at covidprisondata@gmail.com to let us know if you find any issues, have questions, or if you would like to collaborate on research.

Jails and Prisons (Correctional Institutions). The Jails and Prisons sub-layer is part of the Emergency Law Enforcement Sector and the Critical Infrastructure Category. A Jail or Prison consists of any facility or location where individuals are regularly and lawfully detained against their will. This includes Federal and State prisons, local jails, and juvenile detention facilities, as well as law enforcement temporary holding facilities. Work camps, including camps operated seasonally, are included if they otherwise meet the definition. A Federal Prison is a facility operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons for the incarceration of individuals. A State Prison is a facility operated by a state, commonwealth, or territory of the US for the incarceration of individuals for a term usually longer than 1 year. A Juvenile Detention Facility is a facility for the incarceration of those who have not yet reached the age of majority (usually 18 years). A Local Jail is a locally administered facility that holds inmates beyond arraignment (usually 72 hours) and is staffed by municipal or county employees. A temporary holding facility, sometimes referred to as a "police lock up" or "drunk tank", is a facility used to detain people prior to arraignment. Locations that are administrative offices only are excluded from the dataset. This definition of Jails is consistent with that used by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in their "National Jail Census", with the exception of "temporary holding facilities", which the DOJ excludes. Locations which function primarily as law enforcement offices are included in this dataset if they have holding cells. If the facility is enclosed with a fence, wall, or structure with a gate around the buildings only, the locations were depicted as "on entity" at the center of the facility. If the facility's buildings are not enclosed, the locations were depicted as "on entity" on the main building or "block face" on the correct street segment. Personal homes, administrative offices, and temporary locations are intended to be excluded from this dataset; however, some personal homes of constables are included due to the fact that many constables work out of their homes. TGS has made a concerted effort to include all correctional institutions. This dataset includes non license restricted data from the following federal agencies: Bureau of Indian Affairs; Bureau of Reclamation; U.S. Park Police; Federal Bureau of Prisons; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; U.S. Marshals Service; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; National Park Service; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This dataset is comprised completely of license free data. The Law Enforcement dataset and the Correctional Institutions dataset were merged into one working file. TGS processed as one file and then separated for delivery purposes. With the merge of the Law Enforcement and the Correctional Institutions datasets, NAICS Codes & Descriptions were assigned based on the facility's main function which was determined by the entity's name, facility type, web research, and state supplied data. In instances where the entity's primary function is both law enforcement and corrections, the NAICS Codes and Descriptions are assigned based on the dataset in which the record is located (i.e., a facility that serves as both a Sheriff's Office and as a jail is designated as [NAICSDESCR]="SHERIFFS' OFFICES (EXCEPT COURT FUNCTIONS ONLY)" in the Law Enforcement layer and as [NAICSDESCR]="JAILS (EXCEPT PRIVATE OPERATION OF)" in the Correctional Institutions layer). Records with "-DOD" appended to the end of the [NAME] value are located on a military base, as defined by the Defense Installation Spatial Data Infrastructure (DISDI) military installations and military range boundaries. "#" and "*" characters were automatically removed from standard fields that TGS populated. Double spaces were replaced by single spaces in these same fields. Text fields in this dataset have been set to all upper case to facilitate consistent database engine search results. All diacritics (e.g., the German umlaut or the Spanish tilde) have been replaced with their closest equivalent English character to facilitate use with database systems that may not support diacritics. The currentness of this dataset is indicated by the [CONTDATE] field. Based on the values in this field, the oldest record dates from 04/26/2006 and the newest record dates from 10/19/2009

The Census of Jail Inmates is the eighth in a series of data collection efforts aimed at studying the nation's locally-administered jails. Beginning in 2005, the National Jail Census was broken out into two collections. The 2005 Census of Jail Inmates (CJI) collects data on the facilities' supervised populations, inmate counts and movements, and persons supervised in the community. The forthcoming 2006 Census of Jail Facilities collects information on staffing levels, programming, and facility policies. Previous censuses were conducted in 1970, 1972, 1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, and 1999. The 2005 CJI enumerated 2,960 locally administered confinement facilities that held inmates beyond arraignment and were staffed by municipal or county employees. Among these were 42 privately-operated jails under contract to local governments and 65 regional jails that were operated for two or more jail authorities. In addition, the census identified 12 facilities maintained by the Federal Bureau of Prisons that functioned as jails. These 12 facilities, together with the 2,960 nonfederal facilities, brought the number of jails in operation on June 30, 2005, to a nationwide total of 2,972. The CJI supplies data on characteristics of jails such as admissions and releases, growth in the number of jail facilities, changes in their rated capacities and level of occupancy, crowding issues, growth in the population supervised in the community, and changes in methods of community supervision. The CJI also provides information on changes in the demographics of the jail population, supervision status of persons held, and a count of non-United States citizens in custody. The data are intended for a variety of users, including federal and state agencies, local officials in conjunction with jail administrators, researchers, planners, and the public.

To fulfill part of its mission, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) conducted the Survey of Prison Inmates (SPI), a national, wide-ranging survey of prisoners age 18 or older who were incarcerated in state or federal correctional facilities within the United States. SPI provides national statistics on prisoner characteristics across a variety of domains, such as current offense and sentence, incident characteristics, firearm possession and sources, criminal history, demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, family background, drug and alcohol use and treatment, mental and physical health and treatment, and facility programs and rules violations. SPI can also be used to track changes in these characteristics over time, describe special populations of prisoners, and identify policy-relevant changes in the state and federal prison populations. Formerly the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities (SISFCF), this survey was renamed SPI with the 2016 iteration.

The U.S. government does not release jail by jail mortality data, keeping the public and policy makers in the dark about facilities with high rates of death. In a first-of-its-kind accounting, Reuters obtained and is releasing that data to the public.

What if the jail in your community had an outsized death rate, but no one knew? For decades, communities across the country have faced that quandary. The Justice Department collects jail death data, but locks the information away, leaving policymakers, investigators and activists unaware of problem facilities.

Reuters journalists filed more than 1,500 public records requests to gain death data from 2008 to 2019 in the nation’s biggest jails. Today, jail by jail and state by state, it is making that information available to the public. Reuters examined every large jail in the United States, those with 750 or more inmates. And, to ensure it examined deaths across the country, it obtained data for the 10 largest jails in each state. The data covers 523 jails or jail systems.

Original Data

Acknowlegement

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