Advocates for Releasing People from Prison Fear That 100,000 Incarcerated Individuals Can Die From the Coronavirus If U.S. Doesn't Act Now
Date:  04-03-2020

Business Insider reports the 2.8% infection rate at Rikers Island is 10 times higher than New York State and 18 times higher than Italy
From Business Insider:

In just a few short weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerability we share as a society. We've adopted drastic measures in attempts to prevent a tidal wave of sickness and death. Yet as we act quickly to save our own lives, we have shown little urgency toward changing the fate of people living inside America's prisons and jails. By failing to act, we are essentially deciding that their death is an acceptable outcome, and that their lives are not worth protecting. Unless we act now, there's a high probability that as many as 100,000 people who pass through our jails and prisons will die from the virus.

By now, almost everyone is aware that the United States has among the highest rates of incarceration in the world. That our jails and prisons are filled with poor people, mostly of color. Many of us also know that our prisons are being used to house people experiencing mental illness. We have not yet come up with a humane response to this reality

OVID-19 is now becoming a threat that takes our system's inhumanity to a new and even more horrific level: We know that the virus spreads in confined groups with frightening speed and efficiency. In a prison environment, huge numbers will die. Essentially, we are transforming their sentence of incarceration into a sentence to death. Continue reading >>>