Estimating the reciprocal relationship between COVID-19 infections of prisoners and staff and infections in the surrounding communities

During the pandemic, the Federal Bureau of Prison's (BOP) COVID-19 dashboard provided daily (updated at 3pm EST nightly) updates on active COVID-19 cases, recoveries, and associated deaths for staff and incarcerated persons by each prison facility (including administrative, medical, and community corrections faculties) in the federal prison system. To collect this information daily, we engaged in nightly, automated web scraping, resulting in a longitudinal panel dataset of COVID-19 information by prison. In the nightly scrape, we also obtained population counts of incarcerated persons in different types of incarceration (in-prison incapacitation v. home confinement v. on community corrections), as well as in private prisons within with BOP system. Additionally, the BOP reported COVID-19 counts for incarcerated persons and staff in community corrections facilities. Lastly, the BOP reported the COVID-19 counts for incarcerated persons in private prisons, but did not report staff COVID-19 counts. The data collection window begins on April 16th, 2020 and ends on July 8th, 2021.