The Coronavirus Is Testing America’s Commitment to People’s Constitutional Rights
Nowhere is the challenge posed by COVID-19 more urgent than in America’s jails, prisons, and immigration detention facilities, where hundreds of people are crowded into shared, unsanitary living spaces. Medical care is limited, and basic protective measures—social distancing, wearing masks, frequent hand-washing—are often impossible. The regular flow of new detainees, plus the coming and going of corrections staff, creates a steady risk of exposure. The government has implored Americans to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, even as it violates every single one of them in many of its own institutions.
These conditions have set the stage for disaster. Rikers Island and Cook County Jail, which were swiftly and brutally overwhelmed by the virus early on, are thus a sign of things to come. Nobody knows this better than detainees. Their statements, and those of their advocates, show lives marked by terror, uncertainty, and fear that they’ve been left to die.
[Barbara Bradley Hagerty: Innocent prisoners are going to die because of the coronavirus]
As a matter of sound public policy and while awaiting trial or facing potential deportation, when experts have identified effective mitigation strategies: to those who clearly threaten public safety; requiring in detention facilities; and who do not pose a clear risk of flight or dangerousness.
