Language Matters: Reporting COVID-19 in Prison Systems

CPP collects and analyzes data on five primary variables reported by 53 sources: each state prison system, ICE, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and Puerto Rico. In an analysis of definitions available on each system’s website, discrepancies in language used to report COVID-related data were identified. Specifically, definitions of the number of people who are incarcerated who are tested for COVID-19 (“Inmates Tested”)  and positive cases in staff (“Staff Positive”) vary. These differences in terminology are important: reporting the number of tests given does not capture how many of them are re-tests of the same individual, due to either re-exposure to the virus or sentinel surveillance testing. 

Historically, CPP has defined “Inmates Tested” as the total number of incarcerated individuals in prisons who have received a COVID test. This was mostly the case early in the course of the pandemic wherein testing was slow to ramp up. However, more recently, as reductions in population have occurred and more robust testing efforts have been deployed, systems have begun defining their testing data disparately. Our team recently did a content analysis of reporting across all of the systems we are tracking. What we found is detailed here in Table 1. 

Very few of the systems reporting data are providing information relevant to staff testing. Out of 53 systems, only 7 are reporting the number of staff that have been tested (defined by CPP as “Staff Tested”). Of these 7 systems, only 1 defines the variable as the number of DOC-administered tests to staff. For the remaining systems, 3 leave “staff tested” as undefined, and 3 specify that testing is self-reported by staff members. 

Systems should aim to be clear in how they define variables related to COVID-19 testing and cases, particularly when it comes to re-exposures and retesting incarcerated people and staff members. In light of these findings, CPP will begin to report two categories of data for relevant systems: both the number of people tested and the number of tests given. For more insight into how systems and CPP define these COVID-related variables, check out our “Data Dictionary” here. We continue to re-evaluate how these definitions differ between systems and what it means for the standardization of data on CPP’s platform.