The Metropolitan Correctional Center, Chicago is a United States federal prison. Bumble Dee/Shutterstock.com
GovExec Daily: The Post-COVID World in Corrections Systems
University of Texas' Michele Deitch joins the podcast to discuss how prisons and jails have dealt with the pandemic.
At detention facilities throughout the United States, incarcerated people have been in the thick of the novel coronavirus pandemic, with one study reporting that inmates have been 550% more likely to contract COVID and 300% more likely to die from it than their free world counterparts. As the pandemic continues to ravage communities, the question is raised: Are our nation's prisons and jail learning anything from this period?
Michele Deitch is a Distinguished Senior Lecturer at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs (with a joint appointment in the School of Law), at the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently directing the COVID, Corrections, and Oversight Project at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of "Correcting Corrections: Lessons for Prisons and Jails in a Post-COVID World,” which is adapted from part of UT’s report “Resiliency in the Age of COVID-19.” She joined the podcast to discuss the pandemic in the corrections system and how the COVID-19 crisis has brought serious problems in the carceral system to the forefront.
