COVID-19 Death Rates and Inmate Vulnerability in Prisons

Throughout the pandemic, the The Federal Bureau of Prisons has maintained that they have a plan to keep the pandemic under control. But federal prison records tell a different story.

NPR's Meg Anderson dug into those those records. Many high risk inmates applied for compassionate release, or Home Confinement, where they could live at home while being monitored by the prison.

But since the beginning of the pandemic nearly 300 prisoners have died from COVID-19, and almost all of them were elderly or had pre-existing conditions. What went wrong?

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