The Brazilian Penitentiary System under the Threat of COVID-19

This paper seeks to identify the chief factors behind the incidence of COVID-19 cases and deaths inside the Brazilian prison system, testing the hypotheses that better equipped and better-staffed systems and the adoption of the prophylactic measures lead to lower incidence and death rates. Results show partial support for these expectations, as certain infrastructure-related measures such as the number of medical appointments held at the prison facility, the percentage of establishments not directly managed by the State, and the number of laboratory tests by inmate are statistically associated with the number of recorded COVID-19 cases. In turn, the number of provisional detainees, and the percentage of prison units without educational facilities are significant predictors of COVID-19 deaths. Nonetheless, not a single measure adopted to prevent COVID-19 inside prisons and jails stood the empirical testing. These results have important policy and research implications.