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UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data Project

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The UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data Project is an initiative of the UCLA School of Law that tracks the spread and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in American prisons,[1] immigration detention centers,[2] jails,[3] and youth detention facilities.[4] Using custom web-scraping programs that automatically collect time-series, facility-level data reported by government agencies, the Project collects and reports data including the numbers of cases, deaths, tests, and vaccination rates among both incarcerated people and staff in more than 1,700 carceral facilities from more than 100 online sources.[5]

The Project also collects and maintains unique datasets of facility populations,[5] releases,[6] data transparency,[7] court decisions and legal filings,[8] prison policies,[9] and organizing efforts.[10] Some or all of these data are available on the Project's website,[11] the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's tracker for COVID-19 in US Correctional and Detention Facilities,[12] GitHub,[5] Google Sheets,[13] and via data visualizations posted on social media.[14] Project staff also regularly produce commentary related to decarceration,[15][16][17][18] vaccination,[19][20] and carceral data transparency.[21]

History

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The Project was founded in March 2020[9][22] by UCLA School of Law Professor Sharon Dolovich, who is also faculty director of the school's Prison Law and Policy Program.[23] UCLA School of Law Professor Aaron Littman, at the time a Binder Clinical Teaching Fellow at UCLA Law, joined the Project as Deputy Director in May 2020.[24]

The initiative was inspired by a prisoners' rights listserv in which both faculty members participate; when attorneys began sharing information about canceled client visits in local prisons due to the coronavirus pandemic, Professor Dolovich and her research assistant Keegan Hawkins began tracking, via a spreadsheet, the information related to visitation. Very soon after, Corene Kendrick, then a staff attorney with the Prison Law Office in Berkeley, put out a request on the listserv for someone to create an open-source spreadsheet to which advocates could post their COVID-related filings, thus enabling the sharing of work as advocates for incarcerated people mobilized on behalf of their clients. In response, Dolovich and Hawkins posted their spreadsheet with an additional tab for "population-reduction requests." As listserv users began expressing needs for additional information tracking, the Project and its growing team of volunteers began to add categories related to releases, youth facilities, grassroots organizing and mutual aid efforts, immigration detention, testing, deaths, and court filings and court orders. COVID-19 cases reported on carcel agency websites were also tracked manually in a separate tab.[25]

The initiative was entirely volunteer-run until the first staff were hired in summer 2020 to more systematically track COVID-19 data in carceral settings.[25] The Project now consists of eleven staff members and more than 100 volunteer researchers.[26]

Funding

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The Project received its initial funding from the Vital Projects Fund, part of the Proteus Fund.[27] It also received support through a partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.[28] The Project has since received funding from Arnold Ventures,[29] the Langeloth Foundation, the Rosenberg Foundation, and the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy.

Impact

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The data collected by the Project is the primary source for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's public tracker for Confirmed COVID-19 Cases and Deaths in US Correctional and Detention Facilities.[12]

The Project's staff and data have been widely cited in news reports[30] and fact sheets[31][32] as well as open letters[33] and public testimony[34][35] that support advocacy efforts related to COVID-19 in carceral settings.

Academic researchers have relied on the Project's data to conduct and publish public health research in publications such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,[36] JAMA,[37] the American Journal of Preventive Medicine,[38][39][40] and medRXiv preprint.[41]

The PrisonPandemic Project at the University of California, Irvine relies on the Project's data to display information about COVID-19 cases and deaths in California prisons.[42]

References

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  1. ^ Saloner, Brendan; Parish, Kalind; Ward, Julie A.; DiLaura, Grace; Dolovich, Sharon (2020-08-11). "COVID-19 Cases and Deaths in Federal and State Prisons". JAMA. 324 (6): 602–603. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.12528. ISSN 0098-7484. PMC 7344796. PMID 32639537.
  2. ^ Niu, Isabelle; Rhyne, Emily (2021-04-25). "4 Takeaways From Our Investigation Into ICE's Mishandling of Covid-19". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  3. ^ "Pandemic's Deadly Toll Behind Bars Spurs Calls For Change In U.S. Jails And Prisons". NPR.org. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  4. ^ Eversley, Melanie (2022-01-14). "As COVID-19 lingers, some juveniles facilities rate better than others in health safety". Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  5. ^ a b c UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data, UCLA Law Covid-19 Behind Bars Data Project, 2022-01-20, retrieved 2022-03-29
  6. ^ Casey Tolan (30 September 2021). "Compassionate release became a life-or-death lottery for thousands of federal inmates during the pandemic". CNN. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  7. ^ Widra, Emily. "Since you asked: What information is available about COVID-19 and vaccinations in prison now?". Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  8. ^ "Health is Justice Litigation Hub". uclacovidbehindbars.org.
  9. ^ a b "UCLA Law Builds Databases on Prisons and COVID-19 | UCLA Law". law.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  10. ^ "Spotlight on Dataset of Grassroots and Community Organizing Efforts around COVID Behind Bars". uclacovidbehindbars.org. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  11. ^ "UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data Project". uclacovidbehindbars.org. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  12. ^ a b CDC (2020-03-28). "COVID Data Tracker". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  13. ^ "UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data Project". Google Docs. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  14. ^ "@uclaprisondata Twitter".
  15. ^ Manson, Joshua (2021-12-20). "What Officials Can Do to Keep Omicron From Ravaging One of Our Most Vulnerable Populations". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  16. ^ Johnson, Sharon Dolovich, Amanda Klonsky and Hope (2021-11-17). "Newsom is afraid of a winter COVID surge? Then do something about prison crowding". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2022-03-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ Klonsky, Amanda; Reinhart, Eric (2021-12-22). "As Covid Surges Again, Decarceration Is More Necessary Than Ever". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  18. ^ Reinhart, Erika Tyagi, Amanda Klonsky and Eric (20 September 2021). "Op-ed: To slow the spread of COVID-19, Illinois must decarcerate". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2022-03-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ^ Tyagi, Amanda Klonsky and Erika. "As COVID rates rise, mandate vaccine for prison staff". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  20. ^ Klonsky, Eric Reinhart, Amanda (2021-08-26). "Get Police Vaccinated". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2022-03-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  21. ^ McLaurin, Josh; Klonsky, Hope Johnson and Amanda. "Opinion: Prisons' culture of secrecy endangers Georgians". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ISSN 1539-7459. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  22. ^ "School of Law launches project to track data on incarceration facilities, COVID-19". Daily Bruin. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  23. ^ "Dolovich, Sharon | UCLA Law". law.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  24. ^ "Littman, Aaron | UCLA Law". law.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  25. ^ a b Sharon Dolovich of UCLA School of Law on COVID-19 Correctional Policies & Responses (April 23, 2020), retrieved 2022-03-29
  26. ^ "Project Team". uclacovidbehindbars.org. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  27. ^ "Regents University Of California Los Angeles". Proteus Fund. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  28. ^ "CDC partners with UCLA program that collects data on COVID-19 in prisons, jails". Daily Bruin. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  29. ^ "Regents University of California Los Angeles". Arnold Ventures. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  30. ^ "In The News". uclacovidbehindbars.org. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  31. ^ Sawyer, Wendy. "Our new fact sheet illustrates what's in store if prisons and jails don't decarcerate now". Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  32. ^ "Coronavirus In Jails And Prisons". The Appeal. 2 June 2020. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  33. ^ "Letter about the Vaccination Process" (PDF).
  34. ^ Williams, Dave (24 September 2021). "Witnesses Slam Georgia Prison System At Legislative Hearing". Georgia Public Broadcasting. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  35. ^ Testimony, Download (15 April 2021). "Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons | United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary". www.judiciary.senate.gov. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  36. ^ Stern, Marc F. (2021). "Willingness to Receive a COVID-19 Vaccination Among Incarcerated or Detained Persons in Correctional and Detention Facilities — Four States, September–December 2020". MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 70 (13): 473–477. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm7013a3. ISSN 0149-2195. PMC 8022882. PMID 33793457.
  37. ^ Marquez, Neal; Ward, Julie A.; Parish, Kalind; Saloner, Brendan; Dolovich, Sharon (2021-11-09). "COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality in Federal and State Prisons Compared With the US Population, April 5, 2020, to April 3, 2021". JAMA. 326 (18): 1865–1867. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.17575. ISSN 0098-7484. PMC 8495600. PMID 34613335.
  38. ^ Saloner, Brendan; Parish, Kalind; Ward, Julie A.; DiLaura, Grace; Dolovich, Sharon (2020-08-11). "COVID-19 Cases and Deaths in Federal and State Prisons". JAMA. 324 (6): 602–603. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.12528. ISSN 0098-7484. PMC 7344796. PMID 32639537.
  39. ^ Ward, Julie A.; Parish, Kalind; DiLaura, Grace; Dolovich, Sharon; Saloner, Brendan (2021). "COVID-19 Cases Among Employees of U.S. Federal and State Prisons". American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 60 (6): 840–844. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2021.01.018. ISSN 0749-3797. PMC 7898987. PMID 33750599.
  40. ^ Marquez, Neal M.; Littman, Aaron M.; Rossi, Victoria E.; Everett, Michael C.; Tyagi, Erika; Johnson, Hope C.; Dolovich, Sharon L. (2022-01-27). "Life Expectancy and COVID-19 in Florida State Prisons". American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 62 (6): 949–952. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2021.12.011. ISSN 0749-3797. PMC 8801258. PMID 35227543.
  41. ^ Marquez, Neal; Moreno, Destiny; Klonsky, Amanda; Dolovich, Sharon (2021-09-28). "Racial and ethnic inequalities in COVID-19 mortality within Texas carceral settings". medRxiv 10.1101/2021.09.26.21264145v2.
  42. ^ "About". Prison Pandemic. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
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