Saved datasets
Last updated
Tabular
Usage rights
License from data provider
Please review the applicable license to make sure your contemplated use is permitted.
Topic
Free
Cost to access
Described as free to access or have a license that allows redistribution.
Clear filters
All
Tabular
csv, xls, xlsx, excel, sas, mat, hdf, h5, spss, sqlite
Document
pdf, doc, docx, document, html, xhtml
Image
jpg, jpeg, png, bmp, tif, tiff, gif
Text
txt, ascii
Archive
zip, tar, tgz, gz, rar, 7z
Structured
json, xml, sdmx, yaml, owl, rdf, xml+rdf, sparql
Other
All other formats
73 datasets found
  1. d

    The Marshall Project: COVID Cases in Prisons

    • data.world
    csv, zip
    Updated Apr 6, 2023
  2. d

    Data from: Prison Population statistics

    • data.gov.uk
    • data.europa.eu
    doc, ods, odt, pdf +2
    Updated Apr 6, 2018
  3. H

    Replication data for: The Public's Increasing Punitiveness and Its Influence...

    • dataverse.harvard.edu
    pdf +2
    Updated May 20, 2015
  4. d

    Unsentenced detainees as a proportion of overall prison population

    • data.gov.au
    csv
    Updated Dec 6, 2018
  5. f

    State_Prison_Population_and_Rates_1951-2003 – Research Data for New York’s...

    • sage.figshare.com
    • figshare.com
    xlsx
    Updated Aug 29, 2020
  6. d

    International Prison Rates

    • data.gov.au
    csv
    Updated Jul 14, 2015
  7. d

    Prison population projections, England and Wales

    • data.gov.uk
    • data.europa.eu
    • +1more
    pdf, xls, xlsx
    Updated Sep 5, 2016
  8. Youth correctional services, average counts of young persons, by province...

    • data.wu.ac.at
    csv, html
    Updated Feb 13, 2018
  9. H

    Data from: Does Incarceration Reduce Voting? Evidence about the Political...

    • dataverse.harvard.edu
    Updated Dec 23, 2016
  10. f

    S1 Appendix -

    • plos.figshare.com
    • figshare.com
    xlsx
    Updated Apr 27, 2020
  11. s

    Self-harm in prison custody

    • ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk
    csv
    Updated Jun 14, 2021
  12. d

    Unsentenced detainees as a proportion of overall prison population

    • data.gov.au
    • researchdata.edu.au
    csv
    Updated Jun 12, 2018
  13. H

    Data from: Estimating the Impact of Gubernatorial Partisanship on Policy...

    • dataverse.harvard.edu
    pdf +2
    Updated Jul 23, 2013
  14. d

    us-states-sociological-metrics

    • data.world
    csv, zip
    Updated Apr 12, 2022
  15. s

    Self-inflicted deaths in prison custody

    • ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk
    csv
    Updated Jun 14, 2021
  16. H

    Replication Data for: "Conscription and Military Service: Do They Result in...

    • dataverse.harvard.edu
    application/x-stata +4
    Updated Nov 21, 2020
  17. Drug-related deaths and suicide in prison custody

    • ons.gov.uk
    • cy.ons.gov.uk
    xlsx
    Updated Jan 26, 2023
  18. w

    Dept of Justice Annual Report 2011/12 - Prison Services Statistics 5 Year...

    • data.wu.ac.at
    xls
    Updated Jul 15, 2015
  19. z

    Data from: THE RELEVANCY OF MASSIVE HEALTH EDUCATION IN THE BRAZILIAN PRISON...

    • zenodo.org
    csv, pdf
    Updated Apr 27, 2022
  20. f

    Potential predictorsb'*' of history of incarceration at baseline among...

    • figshare.com
    xls
    Updated Mar 8, 2022
Share
FacebookFacebook
TwitterTwitter
Email
Click to copy link
Link copied
Close
Cite
The Associated Press (2023). The Marshall Project: COVID Cases in Prisons [Dataset]. https://data.world/associatedpress/marshall-project-covid-cases-in-prisons

The Marshall Project: COVID Cases in Prisons

The Marshall Project is compiling data on the prevalence of COVID-19 infection in prisons across the country

Explore at:
2 scholarly articles cite this dataset (View in Google Scholar)
csv, zipAvailable download formats
Dataset updated
Apr 6, 2023
Authors
The Associated Press
Time period covered
Jul 31, 2019 - Aug 1, 2021
Area covered
World, United States
Description

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.

Search
Clear search
Close search
Google apps
Main menu