Washington, December 30 According to a recent report by Time, the coronavirus epidemic has infected at least 275,000 detainees and killed more than 1,700 people in prisons across the United States, hitting the U.S. prison system hard.
According to the report, there are currently more than 850 prisons and detention facilities in the United States with COVID-19 outbreaks.
The report quoted a study released by the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice in December that the infection rate of the prison population in the United States is three times that of the general public and the death rate is twice that of the general public; at least 275,000 detainees have tested positive for the novel coronavirus and more than 1,700 people have died.
The report said that since the epidemic began to spread in the United States at the beginning of this year, American epidemiologists have predicted that prisons are high-risk places for the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Risk factors include inability to maintain social distancing, lack of continuous supply of cleaning supplies, and lack of appropriate preventive measures. Due to inconsistent policies among U.S. states regarding prison data sharing, the data is incomplete, and the actual death toll may be higher.
In addition to detainees, a large number of employees of the U.S. prison system have also been infected with the novel coronavirus, the report pointed out.
At Correctional Facility in Toledo, Ohio, 172 staff members had tested positive for COVID-19 as of December 27, and the state had to dispatch the state National Guard to help manage the prison.
In October, the American civil rights group, the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a lawsuit against the federal government, alleging that it “failed to respond to the spread of the novel coronavirus in prisons”.
According to the statistics of the U.S. Prison Policy website in March this year, there are 110 federal prisons, 1,833 state prisons, 3,134 local prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional institutions, 218 immigration detention centers, 80 Aboriginal (Indian) rural prisons and other detention facilities in the United States. The total number of personnel is nearly 2.3 million.
