80 percent of those who died of Covid-19 in Texas county jails were never convicted of a crime
Over 230 people have died from Covid-19 in Texass correctional facilities and in county jails, nearly 80 percent of them were in pretrial detention and hadnt even been convicted of a crime, according to a new report.
A team of researchers at the University of Austin at Texas reviewed data from the the Texas Justice Initiative which collects information from multiple sources including the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). They found that at least 231 people have died of Covid-19 in the states correctional facilities between March and October. This report only looked at state-operated prisons and county-operated jails, as researchers were focused on how Texass Covid-19 prison policies had fared.
The 231 figure is likely to be a conservative count. As the researchers note, TDCJ and county jails update death reports after autopsies are conducted, sometimes months after the fact. Additionally, many people have died without ever having been tested for COVID, and others died due to a preexisting conditioned worsened by the virus and are not counted in this figure.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/11/12/21562278/jails-prisons-texas-covid-19-coronavirus-crime-prisoners-death