Letter to Senate and House Majority and Minority Leaders: Schumer, Pelosi, McConnell, and McCarthy - Pressley, Warren, Garcia, Booker, Murray, Colleagues to Reintroduce COVID-19 in Corrections Data Transparency Act

Letter

Dear Majority Leader Schumer, Minority Leader McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, and Minority Leader McCarthy

As Congress continues to negotiate the upcoming coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) relief package, we urge you to include provisions that would fund routine diagnostic testing, contact tracing, vaccine distribution, and data collection in federal, state, and local correctional facilities. Specifically, we ask that you include portions of our Federal Correctional Facilities COVID-19 Response Act1 and our COVID-19 in Corrections Data Transparency Act2 in the package.

As COVID-19 continues to spread across the United States, individuals living and working in correctional facilities remain at particularly high risk of contracting and dying from the virus. Social distancing, quarantining, and other public health measures are challenging in many correctional facilities3, and research suggests that incarcerated people contract COVID-19 at 5.5 times the rate, and die at three times the rate, of the U.S. population as a whole.4 To date, nearly 600,000 incarcerated people and correctional workers have contracted COVID-19 and 2,600 have died.5
Given the high rates of COVID-19 in correctional facilities, we were pleased to see that President Biden's American Rescue Plan identified prisons and jails as facilities in need of federal support. The plan calls for "expanded testing" to ensure that "vulnerable settings like prisons...can regularly test their populations."6 It "supports COVID-19 safety in federal, state, and local prisons, jails, and detention centers by providing funding for COVID-19 mitigation strategies, including supplies and physical distancing; safe re-entry for the formerly incarcerated; and the vaccination of both incarcerated people and staff."7 And it seeks to "address health disparities and COVID-19"--a goal that necessitates the collection of high-quality demographic data on the COVID-19 response.

Fortunately, we have already introduced legislation with strong support among relevant stakeholders that would accomplish President Biden's goals. The Federal Correctional Facilities COVID-19 Response Act, introduced by Senators Warren and Booker and Representatives Barragán, Holmes Norton, Hayes, Davis, Carson, Cardenas, and Grijalva, would require federal correctional facilities to conduct free, weekly COVID-19 diagnostic testing for incarcerated people and staff; fund the distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations at federal correctional facilities; require the Bureau of Prisons to update its guidance on COVID-19 mitigation in correctional facilities, including through contact tracing and decarceration; and promote data collection.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 in Corrections Data Transparency Act, introduced by Senators Warren, Murray, and Booker and Representatives Pressley, Garcia, Clarke, Kelly and cosponsored by Senators Blumenthal, Markey, Sanders, Durbin, Baldwin, Casey, Wyden, Van Hollen, and Merkley and, Representatives Trone, Speier, Espaillat, Holmes Norton, DeSaulnier, Hayes, Kennedy and Demings, would require the Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Marshals Service, and state governments to collect and publicly report detailed data about COVID-19 in federal, state, local, correctional facilities, including demographically disaggregated data on testing, COVID-19 cases, case outcomes, and vaccinations among incarcerated people and correctional staff.

Our bills have received support from public health organizations, like the American Public Health Association and Partners in Health, and criminal justice organizations, like the Vera Institute of Justice. We believe our legislation should be used as the starting point for House and Senate negotiations on relief package provisions preventing the spread of COVID-19 in correctional facilities. We strongly urge you to consider our legislation as negotiations continue.

Sincerely,