Deaths in US prisons up by 50 pct during 1st COVID-19 year: data

NEW YORK -- US state and federal prisons saw deaths surging nearly 50 percent during the first year of the pandemic, and in six states they more than doubled, The New York Times reported Sunday, citing the first comprehensive data on prison fatalities in the era of COVID-19.

"The tremendous jump in deaths in 2020 was more than twice the increase in the United States overall, and even exceeded estimates of the percentage increase at nursing homes, among the hardest-hit sectors nationwide," said the US daily.

While there was ample evidence that prisons were COVID hot spots, the data underscored how quickly the virus rampaged through crowded facilities, and how an aging inmate population, a correctional staffing shortage and ill-equipped medical personnel combined to make prisoners especially vulnerable during the worst public health crisis in a century, according to the report.

COVID infections drove the death totals, but inmates also succumbed to other illnesses, suicide and violence, according to the data, which was collected by law school researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Altogether, at least 6,182 people died in American prisons in 2020, compared with 4,240 the previous year, even as the country's prison population declined to about 1.3 million from more than 1.4 million, the report said.