Prison populations fell in 2020 compared to previous years as states released inmates as the coronavirus raged and courts stalled. Crime also spiked that year and has continued.
across the country in the last couple of years, most notably violent crimes such as murders. As the country dealt with coronavirus lockdowns that upended society, the protests and riots that erupted in the summer of 2020 and a demoralized police force, data show prison populations also fell that year.
"But that being said, certainly COVID led to an enormous decrease in incarceration both through decisions made by prosecutors and by judges," Meyers said. "To mitigate the effects of the spread of COVID-19 and protect the public health, welfare, and safety, especially of vulnerable workers or incarcerated persons at Maryland prisons, it is necessary and reasonable to implement protocols and procedures for transfer out of the State’s correctional institutions," an order from Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, for example, read that year.
"I don't really think that there is a strong correlation between the releasing for COVID-related purposes and those individuals subsequently contributing to the current spike, because the data that we have thus far indicates that individuals released on COVID release actually re-offend and recidivate substantially less than individuals who are released through the traditional criminal justice processes," she added.
Meyers said multiple variables can add to a dip in prison populations, such as people not committing as many crimes, less space in prisons to hold inmates, and changes to prosecution policies, such as bail reform. "It created such an impossibly large amount of material that prosecutors are now required to collect and hand over to defense attorneys that, for most cases, ADAs simply run out of the time they are legally allotted to bring cases, and these cases are automatically dismissed. Prosecutors therefore triage cases. Case dismissals in NYC rose from 44% in 2019 to 69% in 2021 largely because of this," Meyers wrote.