Prisons make fertile breeding grounds for viruses, yet administrations have revealed little about COVID-19 cases, deaths and vaccinations in Europe’s prisons. Data from 29 countries show the pandemic’s impact on prisons.
This project is a collaboration within the European Data Journalism Network.
Project lead: Deutsche Welle
Collaborators: Alternatives Economiques, Civio, El Confidencial, EUrologus, Il Sole24Ore, iMEdD, MIIR, OBC Transeuropa, Openpolis, Pod črto, VoxEurop
In this repository, you will find methodology, data and code behind this investigation.
Links will be added as articles are published.
Main overview article:
- DW: "COVID: How Europe’s prisons have fared in the pandemic" [English | Albanian | Bosnian | Bulgarian | Croatian | German | Greek | Macedonian | Polish | Romanian | Serbian]
- European Data Journalism Network: "Locked up: Covid-19 and prisons in Europe" [English | French | German | Italian]
- VoxEurop: "Convicted twice over: Europe’s prisons and the pandemic" [English | French | German | Italian | Romanian | Spanish]
- MIIR: "COVID: How Europe’s prisons have fared in the pandemic" [English | Greek]
Spin-off stories:
- Alternatives Economiques: "Les prisons à l’épreuve de la pandémie" ("Prisons in the pandemic") [French]
- Alternatives Economiques: "Enquête sur l’enfer carcéral au temps du Covid" ("France: The pandemic has exposed a dysfunctional prison system") [English | French]
- Alternatives Economiques: "Avec la pandémie, c’est la prison dans la prison" ("With the pandemic, it was a prison inside prison") [English | French]
- EUrologus: "The impact of Covid-19 on prisons in Hungary" ("Koronavírus-járvány a rácsok mögött") [English | Hungarian]
- iMEdD: "Overcrowding, isolation, and shrinking of human rights in Greek prisons" [English]
- OBC Transeuropa: "Covid-19 e carceri: chiusure dolorose e innovazioni incoraggianti" ("Covid-19 and prisons: painful closures and encouraging innovations")[English | Italian]
- OpenPolis: "La gestione della pandemia nelle carceri italiane e europee" ("Pandemic management in Italian and European prisons)" [Italian]
- Sphera: "the impact of Covid-19 on prisons across Europe" [Italian | English]]
- VoxEurop: "Prisons have managed to contain the pandemic, but at what price?" [English | French]
This repository is maintained by: Kira Schacht
| Name | Content |
|---|---|
Database Prisons and Covid.xlsx |
The main database used for this project |
scripts/prisons.Rmd |
The main R markdown script. Run in RStudio to reproduce this analysis. |
scripts/data.RData |
The R Data file containing the datasets imported and created using the analysis script. |
data/... |
Other data files used for this analysis |
graphics/... |
Finalized graphics that came out of this analysis |
Much of the data we use is collated from various sources and collected for this project by the collaborators.
Notable sources include:
For prison populations and capacities, as well as case numbers, up to September 2020:
- Aebi, M. F., & Tiago, M. M. (2021). SPACE I - 2020 – Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics: Prison populations. Strasbourg: Council of Europe
- Aebi, M. F. & Tiago, M. M. (2020). Prisons and Prisoners in Europe in Pandemic Times: An evaluation of the medium-term impact of the COVID-19 on prison populations. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
For measures taken in prisons to curb the spread of COVID-19, up to August 2020:
- Güerri C, Martí M, Pedrosa A. (2020). Las prisiones ante el COVID-19. Medidas adoptadas por país.
Data on cases, deaths, and vaccinations were augmented using the following sources:
- EuroPris: COVID-19 Feedback Collection
- World Prison Brief
- Various national and regional sources, e.g. the local Ministries of Justice or prison administration
Data on pandemic measures and were augmented using the following sources:
- EuroPris (2021): COVID-19 Feedback Collection
- EuroPris (2021): Prevention measures in European Prisons against COVID-19
- Prison Insider (2020): Europe: coronavirus, prison fever
You can find detailed information on the source of each data point in the project database, which you can find in the Excel file in this repository, as well as in this Google Sheet.
The base countries included in this analysis are the EU-27 we could find information on. Non-EU countries in Europe were added when of interest to the analysis.
- Read data
- Data overview
- Consolidate regional data
- Check non-cumulative data points
- Relative and absolute cases / deaths
- Vaccination progress
- Prison population and overcrowding
-
Read cases/deaths data
d -
Join with vaccination progress data
d_vax -
Read prison population data
d_pop -
Data on cases, deaths and vaccinations in the general population
covid_pop. (Source: Our World in Data, extracted on 2021-11-21) -
Filter all datasets for countries included in analysis
Main dataset columns:
## [1] "country" "level"
## [3] "region" "date"
## [5] "period" "cases_inmates"
## [7] "deaths_inmates" "cases_staff"
## [9] "deaths_staff" "people with at least 1 dose"
## [11] "administered doses" "fully vaccinated people"
Chart of available data points:
Number of countries by geographic levels of data:
d %>% group_by(level) %>% summarize(n = length(unique(country))) %>% knitr::kable()| level | n |
|---|---|
| individual | 1 |
| national | 35 |
| regional | 4 |
4 countries have regional data that might need to be aggregated to the national level:
d %>% filter(level == "regional") %>% `$`(country) %>% unique## [1] "Germany" "Greece" "Italy"
## [4] "Spain (State Adm.)"
Data needs to be aggregated if regional data is not available on the national level for the same dates. That is the case for the following countries:
d %>%
group_by(country, date) %>%
filter("regional" %in% level) %>%
mutate(agg = !("national" %in% level)) %>%
group_by(country) %>%
summarise(agg = any(agg)) %>% knitr::kable()| country | agg |
|---|---|
| Germany | TRUE |
| Greece | FALSE |
| Italy | FALSE |
| Spain (State Adm.) | TRUE |
Of the 4 countries with regional data, Germany and Spain (State Adm.) have to be summed up to provide national figures.
About the regional data:
- regional data for
Germanyincludes regional data for all 16 states, although in varying levels of detail - regional data for
Spain (State Adm.)includes regional data for 18 autonomous cities and communities of Spain, excluding Catalonia, for these 4 points in time:2020-06-21, 2020-12-31, 2021-03-31, 2021-08-03.
To see how complete a picture the regional data for Germany provide, we check to see whether the regions with the highest case numbers also provided relatively frequent data updates.
- Spain: data present for all regions for the same points in time
- Germany: regions with higher case numbers have provide more data points, regions with only few available data points have relatively low numbers
Aggregating across regions should provide a reasonably complete picture for Germany. Case numbers should be viewed as minimum case numbers for any given point in time.
Vaccination data for Germany is only sporadically available and should not be aggregated to the national level.
-
Summarize data across regions
-
Append to complete datasets
Some countries did not report cumulative data, but instead only reported data referring to specific time periods. These countries are:
d %>% filter(period != "cumulative") %>% group_by(country, period) %>%
summarise(n = n(), min = min(date), max = max(date)) %>% knitr::kable()| country | period | n | min | max |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albania | year | 1 | 2021-09-30 | 2021-09-30 |
| Italy | day | 3 | 2020-04-15 | 2020-09-15 |
| Italy | week | 53 | 2020-11-22 | 2021-11-22 |
| Poland | day | 2 | 2020-12-29 | 2021-02-01 |
Italy, Poland and Albania provide non-cumulative data. For Italy and Poland, this refers to active cases, which can’t be compared to new positive tests at all. Albania only provides data for the year 2021.
This data can’t be compared to cumulative data points from other countries and will not be aggregated.
Plot national cumulative data over time, for countries with data points in 2021.
- France has the most cases among inmates and staff, followed by Spain, Germany, Hungary and Belgium.
- Hungary has the highest death counts among inmates, although they’re still very low, followed, Spain.
For better comparison, we calculate the cases and deaths relative to the prison population at the time. This can only effectively be done for inmates, since data on the number of staff isn’t reliably available.
We pick the prison population size according to the closest reference
date from d_pop. The reference date is noted in the finished data set.
Plot relative cases / deaths over time:
Latest infection rate among inmates by country:
value: Cumulative number of cases on that date
value_rel: Cumulative share of inmates infected until that date, in
percent
| country | date | value | value_rel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Croatia | 2021-11-19 | 826 | 20.96 |
| Slovenia | 2021-06-15 | 202 | 14.85 |
| Estonia | 2021-09-20 | 329 | 14.48 |
| Belgium | 2021-09-09 | 1255 | 12.40 |
| Spain (Catalonia) | 2021-07-12 | 805 | 10.13 |
| Netherlands | 2021-04-14 | 755 | 8.30 |
| Greece | 2021-07-02 | 870 | 7.91 |
| France | 2021-09-23 | 4872 | 7.45 |
| Hungary | 2021-09-17 | 1357 | 7.43 |
| Sweden | 2021-02-02 | 503 | 7.08 |
| Austria | 2021-09-15 | 422 | 4.98 |
| Ireland | 2021-09-17 | 177 | 4.70 |
| Norway | 2021-04-19 | 139 | 4.58 |
| Spain (State Adm.) | 2021-08-03 | 2196 | 4.55 |
| Switzerland | 2021-08-30 | 275 | 4.35 |
| Czech Rep. | 2021-02-01 | 753 | 3.96 |
| Denmark | 2021-07-26 | 149 | 3.52 |
| Albania | 2021-02-28 | 161 | 3.19 |
| Luxembourg | 2021-03-01 | 19 | 3.04 |
| Moldova | 2021-06-18 | 166 | 2.58 |
| Germany | 2021-09-09 | 1487 | 2.56 |
| Finland | 2021-09-20 | 61 | 2.22 |
| Bulgaria | 2021-01-07 | 53 | 0.82 |
| Italy | 2020-04-09 | 58 | 0.11 |
| Cyprus | 2021-05-17 | 0 | 0.00 |
Croatia, Slovenia, Estonia, Belgium and Spain have the highest relative number of cases, with 10-15% of inmates infected.
The latest numbers for Croatia are from the fourth wave in November 2021, while the other figures are from before the fourth wave, so the latest numbers from Croatia are not comparable with the latest numbers of other countries. They are, however, an interesting indication that cases might be rising during the fourth wave in other countries as well.
Most recent share of deaths among inmates by country:
value: Cumulative number of cases on that date
value_rel: Cumulative share of deaths related to COVID-19 among
inmates until that date, in percent
| country | date | value | value_rel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Croatia | 2021-11-19 | 7 | 0.18 |
| Hungary | 2021-09-17 | 15 | 0.08 |
| Bulgaria | 2021-01-07 | 3 | 0.05 |
| Greece | 2021-07-02 | 5 | 0.05 |
| Italy | 2021-09-01 | 21 | 0.04 |
| Belgium | 2021-09-09 | 3 | 0.03 |
| Spain (State Adm.) | 2021-08-03 | 10 | 0.02 |
| Austria | 2021-09-15 | 1 | 0.01 |
| France | 2021-09-23 | 5 | 0.01 |
| Germany | 2021-09-09 | 3 | 0.01 |
| Denmark | 2021-07-26 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Estonia | 2021-09-20 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Finland | 2021-09-20 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Ireland | 2021-09-17 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Moldova | 2021-06-18 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Slovenia | 2021-06-15 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Spain (Catalonia) | 2021-07-12 | 0 | 0.00 |
- Croatia, Hungary, Greece and Bulgaria have the most deaths related to COVID-19, followed by Belgium and Spain.
- Deaths numbers seem surprisingly low compared to the number of cases. Calculate the case fatality rate to learn more.
Pick latest date per country with case and death data available. Calculate CFR (share of deaths in all cases).
| country | date | cases_inmates | deaths_inmates | cfr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kosovo | 2021-09-21 | 50 | 3 | 0.060 |
| Bulgaria | 2021-01-07 | 53 | 3 | 0.057 |
| Hungary | 2021-09-17 | 1357 | 15 | 0.011 |
| Croatia | 2021-11-19 | 826 | 7 | 0.008 |
| Greece | 2021-07-02 | 870 | 5 | 0.006 |
| Spain (State Adm.) | 2021-08-03 | 2196 | 10 | 0.005 |
| Belgium | 2021-09-09 | 1255 | 3 | 0.002 |
| Austria | 2021-09-15 | 422 | 1 | 0.002 |
| Germany | 2021-09-09 | 1487 | 3 | 0.002 |
| France | 2021-09-23 | 4872 | 5 | 0.001 |
| Denmark | 2021-07-26 | 149 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Estonia | 2021-09-20 | 329 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Finland | 2021-09-20 | 61 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Ireland | 2021-09-17 | 177 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Moldova | 2021-06-18 | 166 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Slovak Rep. | 2020-12-22 | 743 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Slovenia | 2021-06-15 | 202 | 0 | 0.000 |
| Spain (Catalonia) | 2021-07-12 | 805 | 0 | 0.000 |
The case fatality rate is around 5% in the highest cases, but more often below 0.1%. Many countries report having had 0 deaths related to COVID-19 among inmates. That seems low considering the usual COVID-19 death rates and the risk factors among prison population. It might be an indicator of underreporting.
To compare the situation in prisons with the situation in the countries around them, we use general COVID-19-figures collated by Our World In Data and compare:
- relative cases
- relative deaths
- case fatality rates
Leave out data for Croatia from November, since it’s not comparable to earlier data from the other countries, which are from before the winter 2021 wave.
Plot relative cases in prisons compared to the general population:
Plot relative deaths in prisons compared to the general population:
Deaths are a lot lower than they are in the general population for all countries.
Plot case fatality rates in prisons compared to the general population:
The case fatality rate in prisons is only a fraction of that in the general population, except for Bulgaria. It seems unlikely that case fatality rates in prisons are actually this low. The more likely hypothesis would be that deaths related to COVID-19 do not get reported as reliably in prisons as they do in the general population.
Calculate share of inmates vaccinated like in 5.2.
Plot progress over time:
Compare vaccination rates among prisoners at the latest available point in time with the rate in the general population like in 5.4
To get a sense of how overcrowded prison systems were at the start of the pandemic, and how things changed since then, we’ll take a closer look at the prison population statistics over time.
Plot prison populations on January 1, 2020, versus official capacity.
One in three countries’ prison systems (10 of 34) was operating above official capacity at the start of the pandemic.
Plot prison populations over time for each country:
Many countries released a lot of prisoners at the start of the pandemic. But in many, populations are now rising again.
Prison density at the latest available date:
| country | date | inmates | capacity | density | overcrowded |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Romania | 2021-07-21 | 23000.00 | 18248.00 | 1.26 | TRUE |
| Greece | 2021-11-16 | 11179.00 | 10175.00 | 1.10 | TRUE |
| Sweden | 2021-10-01 | 7607.00 | 7027.00 | 1.08 | TRUE |
| France | 2021-06-30 | 65384.00 | 60618.00 | 1.08 | TRUE |
| Italy | 2021-11-01 | 53635.00 | 50574.00 | 1.06 | TRUE |
| Cyprus | 2020-09-15 | 716.00 | 680.00 | 1.05 | TRUE |
| Belgium | 2021-09-08 | 10119.00 | 9611.00 | 1.05 | TRUE |
| Denmark | 2021-04-15 | 4227.00 | 4085.00 | 1.03 | TRUE |
| Slovenia | 2021-09-13 | 1360.00 | 1327.00 | 1.02 | TRUE |
| Croatia | 2021-09-16 | 3941.00 | 3919.00 | 1.01 | TRUE |
| Hungary | 2021-09-15 | 18269.79 | 19031.03 | 0.96 | FALSE |
| Austria | 2021-07-20 | 8482.00 | 8880.00 | 0.96 | FALSE |
| Moldova | 2021-07-01 | 6423.00 | 6735.00 | 0.95 | FALSE |
| Czech Rep. | 2021-04-20 | 19000.00 | 19946.00 | 0.95 | FALSE |
| Portugal | 2021-10-01 | 11606.00 | 12618.00 | 0.92 | FALSE |
| Finland | 2021-01-01 | 2743.00 | 2997.00 | 0.92 | FALSE |
| Malta | 2021-02-01 | 821.00 | 927.00 | 0.89 | FALSE |
| Slovak Rep. | 2021-10-31 | 10274.00 | 11621.00 | 0.88 | FALSE |
| Ireland | 2021-07-26 | 3765.00 | 4285.00 | 0.88 | FALSE |
| Luxembourg | 2021-04-28 | 624.00 | 711.00 | 0.88 | FALSE |
| Poland | 2021-09-30 | 71291.00 | 82140.00 | 0.87 | FALSE |
| Switzerland | 2021-01-31 | 6316.00 | 7397.00 | 0.85 | FALSE |
| Norway | 2021-08-07 | 3034.00 | 3638.00 | 0.83 | FALSE |
| Spain (Catalonia) | 2021-06-01 | 7949.00 | 9560.00 | 0.83 | FALSE |
| Albania | 2021-08-01 | 5042.00 | 6106.00 | 0.83 | FALSE |
| Germany | 2020-12-31 | 58004.00 | 72385.00 | 0.80 | FALSE |
| Netherlands | 2020-09-15 | 9098.00 | 11850.00 | 0.77 | FALSE |
| Bulgaria | 2021-07-21 | 7100.00 | 9341.00 | 0.76 | FALSE |
| Spain (Total) | 2021-06-01 | 56166.00 | 75074.00 | 0.75 | FALSE |
| Spain (State Adm.) | 2021-06-01 | 48217.00 | 65514.00 | 0.74 | FALSE |
| Estonia | 2021-07-20 | 2272.00 | 3097.00 | 0.73 | FALSE |
| Lithuania | 2021-07-20 | 5181.00 | 7326.00 | 0.71 | FALSE |
| Latvia | 2021-09-20 | 3124.00 | 4822.00 | 0.65 | FALSE |
| Montenegro | 2020-09-15 | 863.00 | 1333.00 | 0.65 | FALSE |
10 of 34 countries still operate their prisons above their official capacity according to the latest available data, the same number of countries as at the beginning of 2020.
Of those with overcrowded prison systems at the start of the pandemic, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Austria are now below 100% (but still above 95%) of their official capacity. Sweden, Denmark and Croatia are now overcrowded, even though they were not at the start of 2020.