COVID-19 fatalities in Texas prisons and jails

As the novel coronavirus began to spread in early 2020, it was quickly determined that the disease that it causes, COVID-19, can be deadly to vulnerable populations, like the approximately 2.2 million individuals held in prisons and jails throughout the U.S.The Texas Justice Initiative is tracking deaths of individuals related to COVID-19 in local, state and federal jails in prisons, displayed on the map below. Click on a cluster to zoom in on areas with multiple fatalities. Users can also click on the clusters to see details about the facilities and incidents. Additionally, use the filters below the map to view fatalities by age or facility type. For state prisons, compare the pattern of deaths in the filtered TJI map to the location of TDCJ facilities, mapped here.

To view the data set, click here. If you use TJI’s data, you must give TJI credit and adhere to TJI’s Data Access License Terms. Pursuant to the License, you must always link back to the original TJI data set. Further, if you use the data set, please tag us on social media when referring to data retrieved from this site.

Data sources*: custodial death reports filed with the Texas Office of the Attorney General, the Bureau of Prisons news releases, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice news releases and data dashboard and daily tallies from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards from county jails. This data set is updated daily.

*A note: This data is self-reported, and several news outlets have reported that COVID-19 cases are undercounted in prisons and jails in Texas and throughout the U.S. (see: Reuters, the Texas Observer, The Marshall Project, The Intercept and the Dallas Morning News, to name a few). If you know of a fatality that is not on our map, or if you have any questions about our map, please contact us.