Which states are doing best (or doing worst) responding to COVID incarceration challenges?

The question in the title of this post is prompted by this new Baltimore Sun article headlined "Maryland said it has released 2,000 inmates from prisons and jails to slow spread of the coronavirus."  Here are excerpts:

The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services announced Monday that it has released 2,000 inmates from its jails, prisons and other detention facilities over the past five weeks in an effort to reduce the spread of the coronavirus behind bars.

The announcement comes one day after Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed an executive order designed to speed up the release of at least 700 men and women from correctional facilities across the state.  The order speeds up processing of inmates already eligible to be released within the next four months and accelerates the processing of inmates eligible for home detention.

The corrections department offered no details about when the releases began, how many had been freed in the past week or why the department remained quiet amid an aggressive push from local leaders in Baltimore, public health officials and prisoner advocates calling on Hogan to reduce crowding in the state’s prisons.  Department spokesperson Mark Vernarelli said in a statement that the releases were made possible by “leveraging the acceleration and placements" into pretrial supervision and releasing others during the booking process. The department also accelerated processing releases through the Parole Commission and Home Detention Placement program.

As of Friday — the last day a figure was reported — Maryland said it had 136 cases of COVID-19 in the correctional system, with the Jessup Correctional Institution having 40, the highest number in the system. The figure includes inmates, correctional officers and contractual employees. One inmate in his 60s has died, according to the department.

Maryland Court of Appeals Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera last week encouraged the release of inmates who were most susceptible to the virus and who pose no threat to public safety.  Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby had been leading the charge for early release of large numbers of prisoners....  Nearly 200 doctors, professors and staff at Johns Hopkins University sent a similar request to Hogan on March 23, saying the governor’s “inaction on this issue is putting the lives of Marylanders at risk."

This Prison Policy Initiative page indicates that Maryland has roughly 30,000 persons locked up in its state and local facilities, so a release of 2,000 persons would still only involve shrinking its incarcerated population by less than 7%.  And, notably, this article suggests many getting released were already on their way out the (barred) door anyway.  Nevertheless, I am still inclined to give the Free State some credit for living up to its nickname in this remarkable new era.

I know a number of other states have been trying in various way to "get ahead" of COVID prison problems.  For example, as noted here, a few weeks ago Pennsylvania and New Jersey governors issued executive orders to enable temporary prison releases.  This new local article reports on Iowa's plans to release some prisoners to minimize spread of COVID-19; this article from last week reports on Washington state's plan to release nearly 1,000 nonviolent prison inmates early to limit COVID-19 spread.  The UCLA Covid-19 Behind Bars Data Project also has prison release data indicating sizable releases in California, Illinois and Kentucky, and I am sure there are more proactive states out there.

At the same time, it is clear that a number of states have been quite slow to respond to COVID incarceration challenges.  I am not going to name names in this post, but I welcome and encourage others doing so in the comments.  I also wonder if anyone thinks it might be useful to try to do some kind of "ranking" of states in this arena.