Thread by @amandaklonsky1

THREAD: #COVID-19 lays bare the ways in which mass incarceration endangers public health for all of us.

A jail or prison is a closed-circuit environment like a cruise ship, but where many people arrived with communicable illness that makes them vulnerable, buildings are crumbling, rats and roaches, people crowded on top of one another with little sanitation.

This is not to mention the people who work in jails and prisons, who are in danger of becoming ill and spreading infection among incarcerated people and within their home communities.

As the @MarshallProject has pointed out, even hand sanitizer is banned in most prisons because of the alcohol content, and there is little access to sanitation in institutions where people are crowded together with little air circulation (let alone HEPA filtration).

In jails and prisons, hundreds of people share bathrooms, laundry, etc. Toilets in cells don't have lids, which means people who carry the virus cannot close the toilet lid to prevent spray.

Closing the toilet lid is an important strategy to prevent spread of #COVID-19, as human feces is a carrier of the virus, and droplets of water from toilets can lead to contagion.

This problem may feel far away to some of you, but it's not-- there is a jail in every county in the United States. If there are outbreaks in jails (and there may already be), we will see those folks return to our communities sick. #COVID19

Many in prison are among the most vulnerable to severe complications from #COVID19-- the elderly. There are 274,000 people aged 50 or older in state and federal prisons in the United States.

Taken together, this group of aging people in prison is greater than the entire incarcerated population of Mexico, Iran, or Indonesia. If this group was separated from the rest of the U.S. prison population, they would comprise the 7th largest prison system in the world.

Despite its enormous cost, incarcerating aging and elderly people does not advance public safety. Aging people who are released after serving extremely long sentences have a recidivism rate that is close to zero.

Public health officials should be making clear plans to protect the health and safety of incarcerated people and prison staff, and to dispatch medical teams to jails and prisons. #COVID19

Public officials should be seriously and urgently considering offering compassionate release to elderly people who pose no threat to public safety. #COVID19