Jails, Prisons, Detention - Sitting Ducks For Coronavirus

(The image on the right is from change.org.)

Maybe it's because I spent most of my working life in various aspects of law enforcement, but I have been thinking about this since it became obvious that we are in a pandemic with the Coronavirus. While the media is obsessed with what people must do to protect themselves, I have heard very little about what is being done to protect the people that society has locked up.

The United States has more people locked up in our prisons and jails than any other country in the world, and it is our responsibility to take care of those people -- including protecting them from a dangerous virus. And the Trump administration has added to this problem by keeping thousands of people in detention (undocumented immigrants) -- people whose only "crime" was to come to this country to better take care of their families.

Adding to the problem is the fact that most prisons, jails, and detention facilities are overcrowded. There is simply no way to initiate "social distancing" in these facilities. That means when the virus enters a facility, it will spread quickly -- endangering both inmates and employees.

Some facilities have started to limit the people who can enter a facility -- like family or friends visiting. But you also have attorneys (and denying them would raise constitutional questions). You also have many employees entering every day, and even if without symptoms, they could be carrying the virus in to the facility.

Some of you may not care about this population, saying they are just criminals. That's a mean and short-sighted view. While the people broke a criminal law (except for the undocumented immigrants), many of them will be rehabilitated, and spend the rest of their lives as hard-working and tax-paying citizens. We must give them that chance. They were locked up to be punished (and I have no problem with that), but they were not locked up to be killed.

The system may need to consider some rather extreme measures -- like paroling all non-violent offenders. That would allow some "social distancing" for the violent offenders we shouldn't parole. We should also beef up the medical care provided in the facilities (some of which are already sub-par). And it is time to close the detention facilities holding undocumented immigrants, and return to previous immigration policy.

How we treat those we lock up says a lot about what kind of country and people we are. We already look bad because we lock up so many more people than any other country. Do we want to make it worse by unnecessarily killing them? I hope not.