Actually that doesn’t seem so unbelievable - thanks for doing the math. The average age of the imprisoned population is much lower than that of the general population. Most people enter prison young and get out before old age. (Age is the best predictor of breaking the law - the young are dumb and reckless, the old are weary.) Since age is such a huge factor in Covid mortality, the fact that it’s 1700 instead of the expected 2000 is unsurprising.
I had thought about that, but I figured the younger age would be made up for by poorer living conditions and possibly restricted access to care, but i guess that’s not necessarily the case.
Truthfully I havent paid too much attention to covid comorbidities and stuff, so I’ll take your word that the younger age could plausibly skew the mortality rate like this
I tried looking up the average population age vs. average inmate age - but it turns out it’s a much harder question because they’re actually both around 39, except that there’s almost no one under 18 in prison (while ~24% of the US population is under 18) and the age distribution in general is different…
If you’re curious download this PDF (it’s actually about the increasingly older US prison population) - figure 5 on page 4 compares the incarcerated vs. free population pyramids. And here’s mortality from Covid by age in Italy and in China. (And since the PDF is about state prisons, here’s federal prison data - it’s similar.)
In short, Covid mortality under 65 is ~0.1-1.5%. Over 65 it’s 5-15%. 19% of Americans are over 65, while only 2% of imprisoned Americans are . Put another way, among US Covid deaths, 20% are under 65, 80% are 65 or older. So the people most at risk just aren’t in prison.
I figured the younger age would be made up for by poorer living conditions and possibly restricted access to care
Yeah, good point - I have no idea how much of an impact that has. There’s probably a whole paper you could publish on this. Inmate population mortality minus average population mortality, corrected by age = size of prison conditions effect on health.
