Reporting from The Marshall Project and Andrew DeMillo of the Associated Press illustrates how poorly Arkansas has done in protecting prison inmates from coronavirus — a failing that naturally spreads into the community of people who work or associate with prison workers.

The bottom line:

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One in every five state and federal prisoners in the United States has tested positive for the coronavirus, a rate more than four times as high as the general population. In some states, more than half of prisoners have been infected, according to data collected by The Associated Press and The Marshall Project.

That’s bad, but Arkansas is worse.

It has the second-highest infection rate among prisoners in the country, behind only South Dakota, a COVID disaster area.

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In Arkansas, four in seven inmates have tested positive — 9,700 — and 50 have died.

Prisons, of course, aren’t the only negative indicator for Arkansas. Our positive testing rate is high; our death rate is among the highest in the country, and there’s been no end to the rise in new cases. But Governor Hutchinson insists his “targeted” strategy of light restrictions has preserved the economy, whatever the cost of lives and health.

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So this finding is also relevant:

Things would have been better with a continuation of federal support to workers and if Arkansas didn’t have among the worst unemployment benefits in the country. Even still, the legislature today made clear its desire to hold employers harmless from an unemployment insurance rate increase with an infusion of federal disaster aid rather than put money into the hands of needy people who’d spend it at those same businesses.

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