High incarceration rates fuel COVID-19 spread and undermine US public safety

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/927137

 

News Release 2-Sep-2021
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Northwestern University

 

How can government slow the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S.? Look to America’s unique epidemic engines: jails and prisons in America.

Extremely high rates of incarceration in the U.S. undercut national public health and safety. The overcrowded, tight quarters in jails fuel constant risks of outbreaks. Add to that the daily movement of 420,000 guards in and out of the facilities and 30,000 newly released people who are likely to inadvertently carry the virus back to communities.

A new study from Northwestern Medicine, Toulouse School of Economics and the French National Centre for Scientific Research found the best way to address this public safety threat is through decarceration (i.e., reducing the number of people detained in jails).

“If we can immediately stop jailing people for minor alleged offenses and begin building a national decarceration program to end mass incarceration, these changes will protect us from COVID-19 now and will also benefit long-term U.S. public health and pandemic preparedness,” said first author Dr. Eric Reinhart, an anthropologist of public health and resident physician in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.


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The U.S. incarcerates people at seven times the average rate among peer nations such as France, Canada, Germany, England, etc., and holds almost 25% of the world’s incarcerated population. Due to crowded conditions with poor healthcare, U.S. jails and prisons have effectively become infectious disease incubators in which at least 661,000 cases of COVID-19 have been documented since the pandemic began.

Reinhart said this is due in large part to the 55% weekly turnover rate in U.S. jail populations, which means crowds of people—totaling approximately 650,000 each day, 75% of whom are awaiting trial and 25% of whom are serving short sentences for minor offenses—are being detained in cramped spaces, and then most are released back to their communities shortly thereafter. While detained, their chances of contracting SARS-Cov-2 increase dramatically, and when they return home, many unknowingly carry the virus back to their friends, family and neighbors.



“The majority of these people should never have been taken to jail in the first place,” Reinhart said. “There is no plausible public safety justification for their detention in a large proportion of cases, and a significant percentage of those jailed will never be convicted of the alleged crimes for which they were detained. Furthermore, no one––regardless of whether they have in fact committed a crime––should be subjected to the high risk of coronavirus infection imposed by the poor conditions in these facilities.

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Reinhart and Chen estimated that an 80% reduction in U.S. jail populations––a level of decarceration achievable simply by pursuing alternatives to jail detention for those detained for non-violent alleged offenses––would have been associated with 2% reduction in daily COVID-19 case growth rates. This effect size was eight times larger in counties with above-median population density, including large urban areas, and was considerably larger when Reinhart and Chen considered not just changes in jail populations but also estimated jail turnover.

“Although this may sound like a small number,” Reinhart said, “because daily growth routes compound over time, even just a 2% reduction in daily case growth rates in the U.S. from the beginning of the pandemic until now would translate to the prevention of millions of cases. And, if on top of that, you factor in prison-related spread and the contribution of over 400,000 jail and prison guards to COVID-19 cases in their home communities––something we didn’t have access to data to track––then the contribution of the U.S. carceral system to overall COVID-19 cases in the U.S. has clearly been enormous,” he said.

Nursing home visitation bans were associated with the largest reduction (7.3%) in COVID-19 case growth rates of all the policies Reinhart and Chen analyzed, followed by school closures (4.3%), mask mandates (2.5%), prison visitation bans (1.2%), and stay-at-home orders (0.8%).

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