Nearly 6 percent of a Texas prison's population has died from COVID-19, new report finds

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published 10 November 2020

A new report from the University of Texas' Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs shed light on how the coronavirus has affected the state's correctional facilities.

Several pieces of data were striking, including the fact that 6 percent of the incarcerated population in one prison, the Duncan Unit, died from COVID-19. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the Duncan Unit has a capacity of 606.

As the report itself acknowledges, it's not surprising that the raw numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths are higher in Texas' prison system are higher than other in states, since Texas has the largest system in the country at the state level. But even when looking at infections and deaths as a rate, Texas' system is the second and third worst in the nation, respectively. Additionally, the state has been unable to bring the death curve in its correctional facilities down as successfully as comparable states have, and the report notes that the number of reported deaths in Texas prisons "remains stubbornly high." Read the full report here. Tim O'Donnell

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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