Coronavirus: Overcrowded US jails will worsen spread, expediting releases could reduce burden, warn experts
With the number of coronavirus cases in the US going past 1,100 and the death toll touching 36, concerns have been raised over the state of overcrowded jails in the country. Penal reform groups have warned that the overflowing cells in the jails across the country could see the rapid spread of the disease and Democratic senators have asked prison officials to unveil contingency plans they have to tackle any outbreak.
According to a report in Newsweek, The Sentencing Project has asked public officials to release those people in jail who pose no public safety risk, like those housed in pre-trial detention or those under rehabilitation.
Nazgol Ghandnoosh, a senior research analyst of the DC-based research and advocacy center, told Newsweek: “Existing unsanitary and overcrowded prison and jail conditions will exacerbate the spread of the new coronavirus.”
"Elderly incarcerated people often pose little public safety risk but disproportionately suffer from chronic medical conditions and thus are at the highest risk of dying from COVID-19.
"Time is of the essence to avert a public health catastrophe in the United States' prisons and jails. Protecting incarcerated people during a contagious health crisis by expediting releases would reduce the burden on prison staff of caring for the very ill and reduce demand for limited hospital resources which are shared with the broader public,” Ghandnoosh added.
The thought has found support in other quarters too. National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers president Nina Ginsberg expressed concern last week whether the country’s detention facilities are up to the challenge. The fear is huge since the US has the largest incarcerated population in the world (around 2.3 million).
Maria Morris, Senior Staff Attoney, American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project, penned the concern in an op-ed recently. She said the jails are not closed places where staff members and visitors meet each other and this poses a big risk.
“There is ample opportunity for a virus to enter a prison or jail, and for it to go back out into the community,” she wrote in the piece published by Common Dreams.
Sanders, Warren, Harris write to top authorities
The issue of jails posing a threat of making the coronavirus threat worse has also been addressed by Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and former presidential runners Senators Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. They signed a letter asking the Federal Bureau of Prisons about its plans on tackling coronavirus.
The letter, which was also addressed to prison operators GEO Group, CoreCivic and Management and Training Corporation, said: “Given the spread of the virus in the US—and the particular vulnerability of the prison population and correctional staff—it is critical that [you] have a plan to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus to incarcerated individuals and correctional staff, along with their families and loved ones, and provide treatment to incarcerated individuals and staff who become infected.”
PPI suggests some common-sense policies
Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), which regularly speaks up against the high incarceration rate in the US, also addressed the matter. PPI Executive Director Peter Wagner co-authored a piece with Emily Widra in which they brought the focus of policymakers on the virus threat saying it is urgent on their part to think how a viral pandemic would impact people in jails or on probation and parole and to take into consideration the issue of public health while initiating criminal justice reform.
In the piece, the authors offered five common-sense policies that could slow down the spread of coronavirus and they include: releasing medically fragile and older adults; not charging medical co-pays in prison; lower jail admissions to reduce ‘jail churn’; reduce unnecessary parole and probation meetings and scrapping parole and probation revocations for technical violations.