COVID ravaged Indiana's prisons
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As the number of deaths among U.S. prisoners skyrocketed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers say Indiana prisons experienced a death rate even higher than the coronavirus-skewed national average.
Why it matters: Although it's long been clear that prisons struggled to contain COVID outbreaks, there's still no official pandemic prison death toll — leaving the work up to a "patchwork of research groups and reporters," per The Marshall Project, a nonprofit criminal justice news outlet that analyzed the findings.
Driving the news: Mortality in U.S. prisons increased 77% in 2020 compared to 2019 — 3.4 times higher than among the free population, according to a new study.
- The researchers, out of the University of California, Irvine, and Brigham and Women's Hospital, combined disparate state and federal prison data to create what they consider "the most comprehensive understanding to date of in-custody mortality during 2020."
By the numbers: In Indiana, there were 52.2 deaths per 10,000 incarcerated people in state or federal prisons — 143 total deaths — in 2020, representing a 46% increase in the mortality rate from just one year prior.
- That is higher than the national prison mortality rate of 48.3 across state and federal prisons, and the third highest among Midwestern states.
- Indiana only trails Michigan (65.2) and Nebraska (53.6).
The latest: Data from the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute, which tracked deaths in state prisons, shows the number dropped from 2020 to 2021.
- In 2021, Indiana had a total of 92 state prison deaths statewide, 37 fewer than in 2020.
- The percentage of deaths reported within state prisons due to natural causes/illness, which includes deaths related to COVID-19, also dropped from 83% to 67%.
- "This is likely attributed to the emergence of COVID-19 during 2020 and the subsequent impact it had on incarcerated individuals," the 2021 report states.
Yes, but: Starting in April 2022, COVID-19-related deaths were no longer recorded for Indiana's Death in Custody Reporting Act reports.
Between the lines: The pandemic hit older prisoners especially hard, per The Marshall Project.
- Nationwide, there were 150 more deaths per 10,000 incarcerated people in 2020 compared to 2019 among those 65 or older, but about one more death for those 49 and under.
The bottom line: Understanding COVID's true impact in prisons is key to learning "from what happened, so we don't do this again in the future when we have another pandemic, another crisis," study lead author Naomi Sugie told The Marshall Project.