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Prisoner Deaths Mount as Coronavirus Spreads Rapidly Behind Bars

HeadlineApr 15, 2020

In Ohio, the head of a prison guards’ union says a fifth prisoner has died of COVID-19 at the Elkton Federal Correctional Institution, where 36 prisoners and 26 staff members have tested positive. Elsewhere, Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Ohio and Indiana have reported the first COVID-19 deaths of people in state prisons. A prisoner at the D.C. Central Detention Facility died of the disease on Monday, and at the Rikers Island jail here in New York, a second prisoner has died of COVID-19. In Michigan, where at least 10 incarcerated people have died, prisoners have filed a federal lawsuit alleging they’ve been given a “death sentence.” 

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