{"title":"Comparing COVID-19 between Prisons and the Community","authors":"K. B. Bucklen, Michael LaForest","doi":"10.1080/23774657.2022.2110174","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":91861,"journal":{"name":"Corrections : policy, practice and research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Corrections : policy, practice and research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23774657.2022.2110174","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
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.