Comparing COVID-19 between Prisons and the Community

ABSTRACT Policy-makers need the best available evidence to inform policy decisions during public health emergencies. We illustrate this in the context of temporary prisoner release decisions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We leverage parolee COVID-19 mortality rates in PA to show that prior estimates of the expected COVID-19 mortality rate for prisoners if released into the community, calculated from community rates, underestimate expected deaths by a factor of over 2.5. These results suggest a substantially smaller return to public health from temporary prisoner release programs than previously estimated and that, in some settings, such programs can increase COVID-19 risk. They also highlight the importance of selecting an appropriate comparison group when estimating counterfactuals to inform public policy.