One in five U.S. prisoners has tested positive for COVID-19, report says

At least 275,000 prisoners have caught coronavirus and more than 1,700 have died, according to a joint report by AP and The Marshall Project.

By Alex Nitzberg

Published: December 20, 2020 4:17pm

Updated: December 20, 2020 10:58pm

The U.S. prison population has suffered a significant toll from COVID-19, according to a report by the Associated Press and the nonprofit The Marshall Project news project that says that one in five state and federal inmates in America have tested positive for the illness.

More than fifty percent of prisoners in some states have gotten infected, according to data gathered by AP and The Marshall Project.

At least 275,000 prisoners have caught coronavirus and more than 1,700 have deceased, according to the report. New cases in prisons last week hit the highest amount since testing commenced during the spring, exceeding prior highs of April and August.

“That number is a vast undercount,” former Rikers Island jail complex chief medical officer Homer Venters said.

Venters, who has carried out multiple court-ordered coronavirus prison inspections in the U.S., said he has found instances where sick individuals were not tested or treated. “I still encounter prisons and jails where, when people get sick, not only are they not tested but they don’t receive care. So they get much sicker than need be,” he said.

Arkansas has the nation's second highest prison infection rate with four out of seven having gotten the illness—over 9,700 prisoners have tested positive and 50 have died, according to the report.

In Kansas prisons, some 5,100 prisoners have caught coronavirus, the third biggest COVID-19 rate in the U.S., trailing South Dakota and Arkansas. Half the prisoners in the state of Kansas have gotten the illness.

"Infection rates as of Tuesday were calculated by the AP and The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the criminal justice system, based on data collected weekly in prisons since March," the report says. "Infection and mortality rates may be even higher, since nearly every prison system has significantly fewer prisoners today than when the pandemic began, so rates represent a conservative estimate based on the largest known population," the report notes.