Items

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  2020-04-02

  Inside Rikers During the Coronavirus Outbreak

  This video shows one families struggle to get early release for their loved one from Rikers Island jail in New York. His sister poses the ten million dollar question, does someone who committed a crime deserve to die? This is the possibility many inmates face in the time of coronavirus because the only way we currently know to slow the spread of the virus is through distance. Something that cannot be done when you're sleeping twelve inches away from another person.
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  2020-06-12

  NYPD Brass: We're Arresting Too Many Prisoners on Early COVID Release

  The architecture, system, and overcrowding in America's prisons make the spread of Covid-19 very quick inside the nations corrections facilities. To help slow the spread of the disease inside these facilities some jurisdictions have released inmates early. Most early release candidates are those that do not present a public safety risk, have served the majority of their sentence, are elderly, or immunocompromised. While some people support this plan others oppose. This article illustrates the concerns of the plans opponents. Of the 2500 people released from Rikers Island, a jail in New York, the NYPD says they have rearrested 250 individuals, for total arrests of 450.
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  2020-04-19

  Prison in the Time of Coronavirus

  This video, produced by CBS Sunday Morning, illustrates the unique problems created by coronavirus inside America's jails and prisons. The US currently has 2.3 million people incarcerated. Many of them are in jail awaiting trial and remain there only because they cannot pay their bail. They have not yet been convicted of a crime. As they point out in the video it is easy for the public to ignore the correctional facilities across the country, but the spread of the virus has changed this. An outbreak in prison can lead to an outbreak outside the prison. While prisons have internal medical facilities there are no ICU beds, which are often needed to treat severe cases of coronavirus. Instead severely ill prisoners are taken outside of the prison to the local hospital. In non-severe cases some prisoners are placed in solitary confinement as a way to quarantine them. This video, almost eight minutes long, mentions Rikers Island Jail in New York, San Quinton Prison in San Francisco, Marion Correctional Institute in Ohio, a Tampa man released early who is charged with murdering someone the following day, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, Orange is the New Black (book and TV show), and the podcast Ear Hustle. HST580, ASU