UPCOMING COVID-19 EMERGENCY RELIEF LEGISLATION MUST ADDRESS PRISON OVERCROWDING & PROTECT COMMUNITIES FROM THE SPREAD OF CORONAVIRUS
Data: Prisons are Greater Public Health Risks than Nursing Homes or Cruise Ships
WASHINGTON – The next COVID-19 relief bill that Congress takes up must address the urgent safety threat in prisons as coronavirus spreads within their walls and well beyond, endangering the lives of corrections officers, prison staff, incarcerated people and the broader communities where prisons are located.
Justice Action Network (JAN), the country’s leading organization focused on bipartisan criminal justice reform, today announced a national initiative tied to upcoming federal relief efforts to address overcrowding at the state and federal level, and support state and local justice systems acting in the best interests of public health and public safety.
“A disease cannot be locked in a cell, and when it invades a prison, it threatens the lives of everyone living and working within its walls, and well beyond,” said Holly Harris, President and Executive Director of Justice Action Network. “We are seeing incarcerated people and corrections staff become infected with COVID-19 at alarming rates, which is a grave threat to entire surrounding communities. If we don’t address overcrowding in jails and prisons, coronavirus will move through the justice system and spread like wildfire, ultimately ending up in your backyard.”
Harris continued, “Across the country, we are watching justice system first responders acting in the best interest of public health and public safety, taking emergency measures to reduce overcrowding in jails and prisons, even as they struggle with infection in their own ranks, and fewer resources to address substance abuse and mental health issues. Congress must act immediately to follow the states’ lead and reduce the federal prison population, and provide critical resources to state and local justice systems keeping their communities safe, while protecting them from this deadly pandemic.”
Here are central precepts of any effective emergency legislation:
1) Relieve dangerous prison overcrowding to reduce spread of COVID-19. Congress must transfer the following federal prisoners to home confinement: the elderly and sick, those who have completed 2/3 of their sentences factoring in good behavior credits, people revoked back to prison for minor technical violations, and people who are not a public safety threat awaiting trial.
2) Support state and local justice systems taking emergency measures to reduce prison and jail overcrowding. Assist the jurisdictions working in the best interests of public health and safety by funding: innovative efforts to distance-treat addiction and mental health issues; wrap-around services to those leaving incarceration to maintain public safety; address lack of staffing due to COVID-related sickness and quarantining; technological advances to continue essential court functions and ensure constitutional protections.
3) Track what is working, and what isn’t. Congress must require and fund data collection on any emergency measures in order to learn from this unprecedented crisis, and adequately prepare for those in the future.
The New York Times has reported that the Cook County Jail in Illinois is the nation’s largest-known source of Coronavirus infections, with more confirmed cases than the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the Life Care Center nursing home in Kirkland, WA, or the cluster centered in New Rochelle, NY. According to the Times, there have been at least 1324 confirmed coronavirus cases tied to prisons and jails across the United States, including at least 32 deaths, and the numbers keep climbing.
Justice Action Network’s national campaign is comprised of advocacy, media, research, and amplification of credible and persuasive local voices from states across the country, all aimed at ensuring that federal policymakers and the Executive Branch are making decisions informed by justice system first responders, and those on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis.