Health Care

SB 118 revises compassionate release

November 30, 2020 by Kenneth R. Brydon

Gov. Gavin Newsome has signed a bill increasing the chance for elderly and ill prisoners to obtain a compassionate release.

The measure, SB 118, provides those incarcerated who have been diagnosed with a condition which is determined to either result in death or incapacitation to the point of an inability to perform the activities of basic daily living, may be released under Compassionate Release to live out the remainder of their lives in the community.

Medical stethoscope with red paper heart on white surface — Photo by Karolina Grabowska

The new law amends Penal Code Section 1170. It says the time an individual may have remaining to live has been extended from six months to one year. This bill also changes the process and streamlines release by removing the necessity of approval by the Board of Prison Terms. These modifications are effective Jan. 1, 2022.

Much of the language of Section 1170 remains the same as before. The process begins with the primary care doctor notifying the chief medical officer of those in an incapacitated state. The requirement includes coma, persistent vegetative state, brain death, ventilator-dependency, loss of control of muscular or neurological function, or other incapacitating conditions that did not exist at the time of the original sentencing, and for those diagnosed with a life-ending condition within one year.

If the chief medical officer agrees, this information is handed to the warden’s office. Within 48 hours, the prisoner shall be notified of the recall and resentencing procedures, and arrangements can be made with a designated family member or another outside agent to be notified as to the prisoner’s medical condition and prognosis.

This then goes to the secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. If it is determined that the prisoner satisfies the criteria, the secretary may recommend to the court that the prisoner’s sentence be recalled, and submit a recommendation for release within 30 days.

The warden’s office shall provide the prisoner and their family member, agent, or emergency contact, updated information throughout the recall and resentencing process about the prisoner’s medical condition and the status of the prisoner’s recall and resentencing proceedings.

Also, the prisoner or a family member or designee may independently request consideration for recall and resentencing by contacting the chief medical officer at the prison or the secretary.

Wherever possible, the same judge from the county of commitment, who conducted the sentencing, shall have the case. If the court grants the re-sentencing, the prisoner shall be released within 48 hours. The exceptions remain that the condemned and those who are serving life without possibility of parole do not qualify.

The demands of the #stopsanquentinoutbreak coalition

September 30, 2020 by San Quentin Outbreak Coalition

This article was written back in August and reflects conditions then.
After months of urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to take action to curb the spread of COVID-19 in our prison system, we are relieved to see that he is finally starting to grant releases.

The governor’s July 10 promise to review 8,000 incarcerated people for release is a step in the right direction. But releasing a mere 6 percent of the people inside California’s overcrowded prisons falls woefully short of the large-scale decarceration needed to protect the health and safety of the community.

We stand by public health experts who have clearly stated that the prison population must be reduced to below 50 percent of what the prisons were designed for to adequately address unsafe overcrowding during the pandemic.

To reach the recommended target of 50 percent capacity, roughly 2,000 people would need to be released from San Quentin alone — the site of California’s worst COVID-19 outbreak where to date, over 1,900 people tested positive.

In just the last three weeks, at least 10 people have died at San Quentin due to COVID-19, the majority of them were housed on Death Row.

Failure to reduce the population significantly will result in incarcerated people continuing to face grave risk of illness, inhumane conditions of confinement, and death.

While the incarcerated community is most at risk, public health experts have emphasized that a drastic population reduction is also necessary to prevent community transmission and bed capacity shortages at local hospitals.

In addition, the Newsom Administration’s continued focus on people with non-violent convictions ignores the undeniable truths that those convicted of serious offenses grow and change over time, that people age out of crime, and that those committed for violent offenses actually have the lowest rates of re-arrest upon release.

We urge Gov. Newsom to expand his release plans to include incarcerated people across all categories of convictions and sentencing — including those serving Life Without Parole and condemned sentences — and consider individuals for release based on who they are today.

Families and community organizations are eager and prepared to receive our loved ones and the larger incarcerated community upon their re-entry. We will continue to push for comprehensive releases as long as the threat of harm and death by COVID-19 in prisons continues.

We reiterate the demands from our coalition, as stated at our recent press conference outside San Quentin State Prison:
1. Gov. Newsom must visit San Quentin State Prison and tour the facility with the press so he can bear witness to the deplorable conditions inside.
2. The governor and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation must immediately stop all transfers between California prisons, and from prisons to ICE detention centers.
3. Gov. Newsom must begin the process of drastically reducing the overall prison population to below 50 percent of current capacity, as recommended by Amend, a group of medical professionals at the University of California San Francisco that works to transform correctional culture to reduce debilitating health effects. Amend visited San Quentin in the midst of the outbreak, on June 13. In order to achieve this level of decarceration, Newsom must grant releases without categorical exclusions based on crimes of commitment or sentencing.
4. The governor must prioritize the release of transgender people who are at disproportionate risk of harm and violence in prison. Additionally, CDCR must ensure that the incarcerated trans community has access to hormones and healthcare immediately – before and after their release.

The #StopSanQuentinOutbreak coalition is comprised of formerly incarcerated folks, loved ones with direct connections to San Quentin State Prison, community organizers, and several social justice organizations. We commit to working with currently incarcerated folks to ensure that our advocacy is grounded in their needs and vision, as we engage in rapid response work combatting the horrendous COVID-19 outbreak impacting prison facilities across California.

Survivor describes his struggles battling COVID-19

September 30, 2020 by Alfred King

The Covid-19 outbreak at San Quentin has caused the death of 26 prisoners and one guard. Ron Lee Joffrion, 55, is a survivor of the outbreak.

He has been locked up at San Quentin for the last 14 years, working for the Prison Industry Authority’s (PIA) mattress factory and assigned to a cell in North Block. He contracted the virus during a period of quarantine at the prison.

“I’m lucky to be alive, and I continue to thank God I made it this far, but I also realize that I’m still in danger,” Joffrion said in an interview. Joffrion is one of the 3,000 prisoners currently housed here at San Quentin who are not able to social distance themselves, and who face unclean living conditions and poor healthcare delivery.

He contracted Covid-19 after the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation imported 121 men from a Southern California prison with a serious virus outbreak. San Quentin had been virus-free and the men were quarantined with no infections; within a short time, thousands of men and numerous guards had it.

Joffrion’s first symptoms were the loss of taste and smell, followed by extreme headaches, and he could not lay on his back. Within hours he could hardly breathe, so it was time for him to go “Man Down”—the prison term for when you have to call for help.

When the officers got to his cell, along with a nurse, he had a temperature of 101. They took him out to Badger section, part of the prison reserved for people who were showing symptoms. He stayed there for the next five days as his condition kept getting worse.

With no improvement, an ambulance transported him to Seton Hospital in Daly City, where he was placed in a special Intensive Care Unit for people from San Quentin. There he saw a lot of guys he knew from the prison.

He was not allowed to notify his family that he was sick and near death. For weeks he drifted in and out of consciousness, praying that he would get better and see his family again—his wife and two daughters.

After 30 days on oxygen in the ICU, he was returned to San Quentin, but instead of going back to his housing unit, he was placed in some sort of medical unit recently constructed in the PIA complex. He stayed there for the next 18 days, then was told that he was no longer infected, though he still suffered from a variety of symptoms.

Dr. Coleen Kivlahan, head of primary care at the University of California San Francisco, sees up to 20 patients like Joffrion, whom she refers to as “long-haul patients.”

She estimates that there are tens of thousands of so-called “long-haul patients” who continue to experience fatigue, chest pains, cognitive issues, and that much remains unknown about the virus, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

Joffrion still complains about his loss of memory and shortness of breath, and can hardly stand on his own. He is weak and frail after losing 30 pounds and cannot stand for longer than a couple of minutes.

As harsh as the virus was on him, he is glad to have survived, thinking back to some of the guys he saw at Seton Hospital who did not come back.

He realizes that he is not out of the woods yet. The virus is still here, and he can see it around him, that proper measures are still not in place to protect people in North Block. There is no consensus on how long he will be immune from catching the virus again, but some data suggests he will be immune for three weeks, while other data says he will be fine up to three months.

CDCR and how they’re handing the global pandemic

September 30, 2020 by Rahsaan Thomas

California prison officials are doing everything they can to protect incarcerated people from Coronavirus outbreaks, except release half the population.

“What we are not going to do is make a bad situation worse,” said Ralph Diaz, Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) at a recent hearing. He cited homelessness as just one example. “Also, before I would do that, I would be looking at the empty housing units that do exist within CDCR and maximized zones to reduce density at institutions.”

Diaz as well as Clark Kelso, the federal receiver over CDCR health care for incarcerated people, spoke at the California Senate Public Safety Committee Meeting July 7.

The meeting, chaired by State Senator Nancy Skinner, was initiated to review the Corona virus outbreak caused when officials transferred infected men from one prison to two others. The purpose of the hearing was to review CDCR’s plans to prevent further spread.

Senate committee members, activists, healthcare experts, and state assembly members Marc Levine and Ash Kalra lined up to have their say and get their questions answered.

Levine called for accountability; Senator Scott Wiener said that if the state wants to control the virus, it will have to reduce the prison population
Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson was so concerned about the situation, she questioned whether CDCR saw incarcerated people as human.
In his opening remarks Diaz outlined the efforts CDCR has taken to prevent Coronavirus outbreaks (see sidebar) and he responded to Senator Jackson’s remark about whether CDCR viewed incarcerated people as human: “…that’s the farthest from the truth. We care about inmates, we care about staff.”

By May of this year, there were hundreds of positive COVID-19 cases at the California Institution for Men at Chino, a prison in Southern California.

In order to protect medically vulnerable people housed at Chino, the CDCR transferred some of the men to San Quentin and some to Corcoran State Prison. Several of the transferees had COVID-19.

At the hearing, federal receiver Kelso explained the decision to move men out of CIM. “On May 23, we decided that the expanding cases at CIM posed an unacceptable risk to the last remaining dorm where hundreds of COVID-19 high-risk patients were housed.”

Although each person was tested before transfer, Kelso said the results were far too old to be reliable indicators for the absence of COVID. “In some cases,” he said, “the results were four weeks old.”

“As it turned out, two of 66 patients moved to Corcoran tested positive when they were retested at Corcoran,” Kelso said. At San Quentin, he said that out of the 122 transferred from Chino, 25 tested positive at San Quentin.
Cases ballooned at both prisons. By the date of the hearing, Corcoran had jumped to 125 active cases and San Quentin had increased to 1,106.
There were no confirmed Coronavirus cases at San Quentin until after the group from Chino arrived.

Moreover, in order to reduce the dorm populations from 200 to 100 people at San Quentin, the cell blocks were filled with two men in almost every 6×9 foot cell.

According to Kelso, doctors from UC Berkeley and UCSF toured San Quentin on June 12. They noted that the cell blocks’ poor ventilation could cause the “virus to spread very rapidly,” just like the dorms.

Dr. David Sears, a physician and professor of medicine at the University of California who was on that tour,

The #STOPSANQUENTINOUTBREAK coalition

September 30, 2020 by Marcus Henderson

Participants in front of the prison’s main gate

Major protests, media appearances and a growing social media campaign are being led by former San Quentin prisoners, families of the currently incarcerated, prison reform advocates and some government officials.

“We (the coalition) continue to agree with public health experts who have said that at least a 50%reduction in the incarcerated rate is necessary for public health safety,” said James King, former San Quentin resident, member of the Ella Baker Center for Human Justice, and state campaigner for the Oakland-based organization, #STOPSANQUENTINOUTBREAK.

The campaign is “not just for people inside the prison but people outside of prison,” King continued.

Assemblymember Ash Kalra speaking to the crowd

King paroled from San Quentin in December after being found suitable for release by the Board of Parole Hearings. King worked as a lead clerk for the Prison University Project (recently renamed as Mt. Tamalpais College), the institution’s college program.

Adnan Khan and Eric “Maserati-E” Abercrombie, two former San Quentin residents, took to the airwaves via social media and radio. Both men bought awareness to the prison’s COVID-19 outbreak in a podcast interview with Brie Williams of the Geriatrics and Palliative (GeriPal) Care blog.

“Physical distancing is impossible in prison and jail,” said Khan on the broadcast. “They’re not built for it. Walkways are three feet wide. Bunk beds where you can feel all your neighbors’ breath.”

“To compound the issue, prisoners are afraid that if they get sick they will be put in The Hole (solitary confinement). So they don’t admit when they’re sick,” Khan and Abercrombie added. “The major response should be decarceration. Reduce the crowding in our overcrowded correctional facilities.”

Since returning home, the pair has worked tirelessly to bring awareness to the community.

“Many people think of prisons as disconnected from society, like a cruise ship,” said Khan. “But for every two people in a correctional facility, there’s about one person who works in the facility and lives in a community. The workers are bringing out whatever they’ve been exposed to in prison.”
Khan and Abercrombie produced short films and public service announcements through FirstWatch, a film-making program at San Quentin before paroling.

Khan is the executive director of Re:Store justice, a justice advocacy organization.

Abercrombie is a singer/songwriter whose music can be heard on the Fox Sports documentary Q-Ball and the San Quentin podcast Ear Hustle.

In July the #STOPSANQUENTINOUTBREAK coalition movement reached the gates of the prison. Chants of “Free Them All” and banners calling for action waved in the background. The coalition held a press conference that included these elected officials: State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco; Assemblymembers Marc Levine, D-San Rafael; and Ash Kalra, D-San Jose.

Some of the officials called for a continued monitoring of the COVID-19 outbreak inside California prisons. “We must sustain attention here at San Quentin and at every facility where people are sentenced for time and locked up across the state of California,” said Assemblymember Levine. “We must sustain this attention because unfortunately COVID-19 is not going away, so we can’t let our guard down.”

San Quentin’s COVID-19 outbreak ballooned to more than 2,000 positive cases and the death of 26 prisoners and one correctional officer.
Activists and family members are calling for release of those incarcerated to make it easier to control the spread of the virus inside the prison, and bringing the medical care within the system into compliance with the constitutional standards that were court-mandated.

James King arriving at the press conference

The activists are not naïve of the challenges and possible lack of political will to have major releases. But the returning citizens who have become agents of change urge Gov. Gavin Newsom and CDCR to follow that data.
“The science of people aging out of crime, as well as the CDCR’s own risk assessments that have identified tens of thousands of people as low risk for recidivism or violence, should be the criteria,” said King.

Jody Lewen, Prison University Project executive director, weighed in on what is needed during these times of trials in her July COVID-19 update letter:

What we need right now is political leadership that 1) directly addresses the public’s misguided fear of anyone who has been convicted of a serious violent crime; 2) proactively seeks out real strategies for safely housing and supporting thousands of people as they return from prison…and, above all, 4) transforms the state’s sentencing laws.
“What we do not need are legislators, advocates, or members of the media who seek to craft sensationalistic scandals out of deeply entrenched systematic problems or sidestep collective societal failures by, for example, calling for the heads of the leadership of San Quentin or CDCR.

Lewen added that things at San Quentin would be dramatically worse if San Quentin did not have its current warden.

“There must be space in this society for the humanity of every single person,” said Lewen. “The coming weeks and months will likely challenge us in unprecedented ways to respond to the question of why the lives of people in prison—including those who may have committed extreme violence—have value and meaning.”

King concluded, “We stand by ready to help facilitate and use our resources to facilitate safe entry.”

My friend died in San Quentin due to COVID-19. His death was entirely preventable.

September 30, 2020 by Adnan Khan

Incompetence and inaction by California’s leaders are driving illness and death inside the state’s prison system.

This piece is a commentary, By Adnan Khan and part of The Appeal’s collection of opinion and analysis.

I just found out my friend died. He contracted COVID-19 in San Quentin State Prison after a botched transfer of positive cases there. As I write this in my grief, I cannot imagine the devastation his family is experiencing with the loss. I knew him well. I was incarcerated with him in San Quentin where I was serving a life sentence. We spent a lot of time together on the yard, in self-help groups and educational classes. I also know San Quentin, the prison, really well. I spent my previous four years there, completing a total of sixteen.

His death was preventable and his safety should’ve been prioritized. He tested negative on June 25 and then died on July 25. He was mixed with positive cases after he tested negative. San Quentin doesn’t have anything under control. All it would’ve taken was political courage to reduce the prison population significantly. Tragically, given what he was left with–trapped in a tight box with COVID-19–survival was out of his control and death was inescapable for him. Sadly, most people won’t care about my friend’s passing. His incarceration gave the state legitimacy to deny him his humanity. As a society, we accept punishment and torture as the only exchange for breaking a law, not redemption. Inhumane treatment becomes acceptable–so as we enter incarceration, the human being gets extracted from the body. Our dignity is confiscated along with the personal, material belongings during the initial strip search.

All of this is made possible by society’s narrow focus on solely the crime. Subsequently, the narrative is shaped as a permanent boogeyman-esque identity for that person. We hardly ever factor in the next decade or two of that human being’s journey to make that assessment whole and accurate. What the public fatally lacks is something we as incarcerated people have an abundance of in prison. Proximity. In prison, we get to know each other extremely well. As the years crawl and the hours get slower, we fill each challenging second by dissecting each other’s lives. We become each other’s test studies and learn the anatomy of the proverbial heart. We spend hours upon hours crammed in tight spaces calculating the psychology behind each other’s thoughts.

Trust and safety are destinations in prison. If found, a sudden ability to go into the depths of each other’s innermost shame, pain, trauma, remorse and the thorough details of a person’s accountability for the harm they’ve caused are unlocked. Oftentimes for the incarcerated, this level of intimacy can gain a more profound understanding than one’s own family. We carry each other’s stories with us wherever we go. The heart-wrenching, often gruesome experiences shared with us do not get left behind upon our release either. It’s not that I remember, it’s that I know. I know who was molested by their father, who was beaten with closed fists by their foster parent at 8 years old, and whose friend was shot and died in his arms at the age of 14. For larger society, these stories don’t match the face tattoos or visible scars. These stories don’t match the warm smiles or laugh lines we see on the prison yard daily. It’s like a deception of senses where I’m staring at the body and face of a grown adult yet hearing the sounds of a child’s shriek.

Furthermore, I know why they committed their crimes. Not to make an excuse for the crime but to understand why. Why they committed robbery, assault or murder. But society is deprived of such a narrative. They’re deprived of the level of accountability and the depths of remorse my fellow incarcerated people have for their victims. I wish they could see how many good people exist inside. I wish they could observe how much of our lives are spent trying to make amends, somehow, some way. Instead, their identity is forever trapped in a time capsule that society and politics has forced them into. As an activist who has been impacted by incarceration, I don’t have a work life that is separate from a personal life. Detaching the two feels immoral to me. I can’t clock out of caring about someone. Getting to know people comes with a burden. Especially in prison. Especially when leaving them behind upon your release. Proximity comes with a set of responsibilities of which you become the project manager of. Survivor’s guilt places deadlines on you that you have to reach. And as in the case of my friend, “deadline” in relation to advocacy is a horrifically accurate term.

Our organization’s slogan is “from proximity to policy.” I feel safe around the people you might fear the most. It is my proximity that gives me access to empathy. Society and political leaders are tragically uninformed about people in prison, yet, make deadly decisions based on their fears. Our obligation should be to know people in their totality, and only then can we create safe policies which address the needs of everyone. Instead, the public’s ignorance has incarcerated our loved ones’ identities and has handcuffed their humanity to their crimes. Everyone should have the privilege, like I did, to get to know a person as a whole. Society saw my friend as someone who was not deserving of dignity. They believe the person who did the crime deserved to die of COVID-19. But if they truly knew who my friend was, he would’ve been released to his family. Rather, they saw him as an enemy of the state. They chose not to acknowledge his humanity. My friend was neglected and he is one of millions of examples of other incarcerated people identical to him.

People we incarcerate are not our enemies. They are victims of societal failures and their crime does not negate their restoration. They are brothers and sisters, daughters and sons and they are someone’s really good friend. My really good friend. As much as we can argue about who the enemy is, one thing that is inarguable is that humanity’s enemy is neglect.

https://restorecal.org/author/adnan/

Reform Alliance donating 100,000 masks to prisons to combat COVID

September 30, 2020 by Harry C. Goodall Jr.

Reform Alliance has a goal of donating 100,000 masks to prisons to aid in combating the COVID-19 virus.

Shaka Senghor of Reform Alliance received an anonymous $100,000 donation, said Jessica Jackson, chief advocacy officer. The organization used this money to buy personal protective equipment.

“We partnered with Shaka Senghor — who spent 19 years in prison and wrote a memoir about his life — who was able to find us an anonymous donor who donated $100,000 to buy masks,” said Jackson.

Reform Alliance was founded in 2019 by celebrities and business leaders, according to CNBC on April 3. Among its members are musicians Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and Meek Mills. Meek was once arrested on drug charges.
Another member is Van Jones, who served in President Obama’s administration. Jones helped pass the First Step Act. Other members of the group are notables such as Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots; Robert Smith, CEO of Vista Equity, and Dan Loeb, CEO of Third Point. This group helps as advocates for granting clemency and reforming penal codes and probation.

Of the purchased masks, 40,000 were delivered to the Tennessee Department of Corrections and 5,000 were delivered to Mississippi State Penitentiary.

New York’s Rikers Island will receive 50,000 masks. Rikers Island usually houses around 5,000 to 6,000 incarcerated people and there are at least 200 documented cases of COVID-19.

Senghor is a consulting producer for the Oprah Winfrey Network program titled “Released.”

He visited San Quentin in November 2017, where he said he wanted to collaborate with men in prison, according to a San Quentin News article.
The documentary “Released” follows Kevin Carr and Sam Johnson, who were both paroled from San Quentin. The show illustrates how they are transitioning into society.

Senghor had spent 19 years in a Michigan prison.

Both Senghor and the attorney/author of The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander, have spoken at the Ella Baker Center in Oakland. Senghor also met President Obama.

In Memoriam for those taken by COVID-19 on SQ Death Row

August 22, 2020 by Jonathan Chiu

The Early Warnings Of a Prison Pandemic

May 10, 2020 by Timothy Hicks

Timothy Hicks wrote the following article well before the COVID-19 pandemic hit San Quentin. It foretells the disaster that would unfold at prisons generally and at San Quentin in particular.

The Corona Virus has hit the U.S., prompting a fear is that it may hit prisons, with many questioning its possible impact.

“Given the volume of incarcerated people in America, the conditions under which they are detained, and the current spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, there is every reason to question whether American detention facilities, as a whole, are up to the challenge,” said Nina J. Ginsberg, the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

According to Business Insider, the US prison and jail systems have more than two million people incarcerated.

“They’re unique because these people are in tight confines, often tightly packed,” said Dr. Burton Bentley II, emergency medical physician and founder of the consulting firm Elite Medical Experts.

The respiratory virus has sickened almost 100,000 people worldwide, reported the Marshall Project. Almost 5000 people have died so far with many of the initial deaths in Wuhan, China where the virus originated.

At San Quentin, prison officials are taking preventive measures to stop the virus from spreading into the prison from the outside. They have shut down the visiting room at the prison, as well as all the volunteer-led programs.

“I’m going to miss my wife,” said Arthur D. Jackson. “But, she understands why they would do that, because if it got in here in this close environment it would spread like wildfire. Although, I am conflicted and I miss my wife I do understand and I know it is for the best,” said Jackson.

Earlier, college classes within the prison closed down because of the coronavirus.

“It’s disheartening,” said Jackson, who works as the main clerk for Mt. Tamalpais College (formally known as Patten College.) “It’s going to stagnate a lot of guys’ programs and put their education on hold. Some people are working on their A.A. degrees and earning credits that can reduce their time they spend in prison.”

“The suspension is a hiccup but I really commend the college staff for making that move to suspend its program voluntarily. It shows how much they really care for us in this community in prison,” Jackson added.

According to local news agencies, schools and other social gathering places were recently shut down and those elderly and most vulnerable to the virus were advised to stay home. Now, everyone in the six Bay Area counties has been told to “shelter in place.” Only those in the most essential services will continue to go to their workplaces.

“There is no way to stop it in prison,” said Don Specter, executive director of the Prison Law Office. Specter has been briefed by correctional officials on plans how to handle the COVID – 19 behind bars. This theory is based on protocols on how the prison system handled the flu virus.

In China, the prisons have become a hotbed for the new coronavirus, reported the Business Insider. Iran has already had outbreaks in their prisons of the Covid-19 virus.

According to a Prison Policy Initiative report, some of the considerations to combat the coronavirus:

Release medically fragile and older adults from prisons and jails. Those with complex medical needs are more than likely to be affected. That will reduce the need of care for those who have chronic illnesses. It will also help prevent them from being infected by viral infections like COVID-19. Iran has already given temporary leaves to a quarter of its prison population, said the report.

Other solutions the report lists: Lowering jail admissions to reduce “jail churns.” To reduce the churns some state leaders are re-classifying misdemeanor offenses, reducing parole or probation meetings and even eliminating parole and probation revocations for technical violations altogether.

A joint statement by 31 elected prosecutors from jurisdictions throughout the US supports such changes and also advocates for immediately releasing those who are within six months of finishing their sentences, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Meanwhile, Yale School of Public Health epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves blames the prisons for having many issues that are hazardous. “Prisons throw people into the paths of epidemics, whether it is TB or HIV or corona virus, said Gonsalves.” He continued, “People without proper ventilation is a perfect breeding ground for quick transmission of any respiratory virus.”

People who are incarcerated do have health care, but he doubts that it is adequate. “Prison healthcare isn’t what it should be,” said Gonslaves. “The question is whether the U.S., state and local correctional facilities are up to the task of preventing infections and whether they have necessary resources to care for the sick, and I’m not sure they are up to the task.”