World Correctional Institutions in the COVID-19 Pandemic

A global analysis of correctional institutions during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Purpose + Methodology

In April 2020, Prof. Nora Demleitner proposed that the W&L Law Library and McThenia RAs should begin tracking how COVID-19 is affecting correctional institutions around the world. With the UCLA Covid-19 Behind Bars Data Project working hard on domestic data, Prof. Demleitner was interested in expanding data collection to foreign countries. 

Prof. Demleitner's methodology is to start small and slowly add countries in which RAs are (1) fluent in the language and (2) can find and comprehend the data. This website is not cover all countries of the world. While total coverage is a noble task, it is not feasible given our human resources. The goal is to provide a "apples to apples" comparison between countries. That said, some correctional regimes are radically different and data distribution is not uniform. 

On each page, a user should be able to tell how recent the data has been updated.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact the Law Library reference email at lawref@wlu.edu. 

Project Participants