HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Shortly before COVID-19 vaccinations began in January at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, officials held town hall meetings for inmates about the vaccines and put up informational posters around the facility.
Yet, when vaccination time came, 212 of the nearly 550 inmates who were offered the shots refused to take them, according to federal prison officials, shining a light on prisoners' skepticism of the vaccine that is permeating many correctional institutions in the country.
In Massachusetts, more than 5,500 state and county prisoners have refused the vaccines, compared with nearly 7,800 who have received the first of two doses, officials said.
Inmate advocates and researchers said prison systems need to do more to educate prisoners about the vaccines, as available data and surveys show many inmates decline or express hesitancy about getting the shots. Efforts should include bringing in outside experts and trusted community members, especially people of color, not just passing out flyers and having talks by prison staff, they said.
"As a Black man, I think about the history of the medical racism and experimentation with Black and brown people in this country. That resonates with people who are incarcerated," said John Hart, a senior research associate at the Vera Institute of Justice who studies prison conditions.
"They have to do a much better job of bringing in people who are more trustworthy, such as elders in the community or people of color who have a lot of credibility," he said. "We won't be able to get out of this pandemic without taking prison facilities very seriously and that includes correctional staff and incarcerated people."
Black people make up disproportionately large percentages of prison populations and patients with severe COVID-19 outcomes. In a survey of people in prisons and jails late last year by the University of Washington's School of Public Health, 37 percent of Black respondents were willing to receive the vaccine, compared with 45 percent of all respondents.
Complicating matters has been that states were slow to make vaccinations available to prisoners. Inmates in 45 states and Washington, D.C., are now eligible for vaccines, but several weeks ago, only about half of states were offering prisoners shots, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. By the end of March, Arkansas and Florida had not yet begun vaccinating prisoners, while a few states said they have offered vaccinations to every adult in their prisons. Eight states have not reported how many prisoners have been vaccinated.
Nationwide, less than 20 percent of state and federal prisoners have been vaccinated, according to data collected by The Marshall Project and the Associated Press. That compares with about 40 percent of the general adult population that has received at least one shot, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And prison staff have also shown high rates of declining the vaccines, which has exacerbated inmate skepticism, advocates say.
The slow rollout of vaccines in prisons came despite the CDC and public health officials recommending prioritizing vaccinations for inmates and prison staff to protect them and their communities from the coronavirus.
U.S. prisons have been coronavirus hot spots. Nationwide, more than 390,000 incarcerated people and 107,000 staff members have contracted the coronavirus over the last year, according to data collected by the AP and The Marshall Project. About three in 10 prisoners have tested positive for the virus, a rate much higher than that of the general population. The infections have proved fatal for more than 2,500 prisoners and nearly 200 staff members.
Efforts to persuade inmates to get vaccinated have been uneven across the country, with some going to greater lengths than others. Inmates in some prisons say they are not receiving important education.
In North Carolina, state prison officials offered incentives to inmates to get vaccinated, including five days off their sentences, credits at canteens, extra visits from relatives and more phone privileges. Half the nearly 29,000 state prisoners have received vaccination shots so far during the ongoing vaccine rollout, said John Bull, a spokesperson for the state Department of Public Safety.
"We know that there's lots of hesitancy out there, not just in our prisons but in the country at large," Bull said. "The prison system here in North Carolina has been working very hard to get prisoners vaccinated."