Thread by @GovMikeDeWine

Prisons pose a unique issue in this pandemic. Social distancing in the general population is helping us #FlattenTheCurve – but for prison inmates and staff, #socialdistancing becomes much more challenging.

We must do all we can to protect prison staff. They can’t work from home. We need them, we appreciate them, and we must give them the safest work environment we can. We also must protect inmates. And we must protect the public from those who may cause them harm.

Recently, @DRCOhio's intake went down by around 20%. That has started to reduce our population in the prisons. I want to thank those at the local level who have been involved in that.

Last week we asked judges to consider the early release of 38 select offenders 23 pregnant or post-partum women and 15 inmates ages 60 and up who are already approaching release within 120 days. Since then, my team has continued to carefully analyze our prison population.

Finding inmates to release from prisons to create more room for social distancing isn’t easy. We have around 49,000 people in our prisons today, and they’re there for a reason.

The murderers, the sexual predators we have absolutely no intention of releasing them back into society. To protect the public, we must be smart and targeted about who we recommend for release.

In Ohio law, there is a longstanding statute (ORC 2967.18) that allows the director of @DRCOhio to alert the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee of an overcrowding emergency and recommend that certain inmates be released to make more room.

We are in an emergency that makes the situation more urgent. We are in unprecedented times, which is why I’m announcing today that we are moving forward with this process and are notifying the CIIC of overcrowding in our prisons.

To help relieve this situation, we believe that there are specific inmates who could qualify for release who are already scheduled for release within the next 90 days.

To be clear, we’re not asking that everyone who is scheduled to be released within 90 days be released early. We narrowed down the list by first looking at those who are set to be released within 90 days and then eliminated those convicted of serious charges such as:

•sex offenses,
•homicide-related offenses,
•kidnapping,
•abduction,
•ethnic intimidation,
•making terroristic threats, and
•domestic violence.

We also screened out those who:
•Have been denied judicial release in the past.
•Have prior incarcerations in Ohio
•Are inter-state offenders,
•Have warrants or detainers, and
•Those who have serious prison rule violations in the last 5 years.

That left us with 141 inmates who qualify for emergency release under Ohio’s Overcrowding Emergency statute and have a release date on or before July 13, 2020.

These inmates are all in our minimum-security prisons. Prisoners in these facilities live in “open bays” w/ 80 to 300 people in a large open room. They sleep in bunks with three feet or less between them. Because of this set-up there is potential for the fast spread of #COVID19.

Again - these are individuals are already approaching the end of their sentences and releasing them slightly earlier than planned will create more social distancing for those we must keep in custody. I encourage the CIIC to give this issue their immediate attention.

There is another, much smaller, group of inmates who we believe should also be considered for release. These are inmates who are 60 years or older and have 1 or more chronic health condition that makes them more vulnerable to #COVID19.

We also looked for those who've served more than 50% of their sentence. Then we started screening out those convicted of charges such as:

•sex offenses,
•homicide-related offenses,
•kidnapping,
•abduction,
•ethnic intimidation,
•making terroristic threats, and
•domestic violence.

We also screened out those who have:
•Been denied judicial release in the past.
•Have had prior incarcerations in Ohio
•Are not inter-state offenders,
•Have warrants or detainers, and
•Those who have has serious prison rule violations in the last several years.

We also took out habitual offenders – those with 2 or more prior convictions. This left us with 26 inmates statewide.

As I explained yesterday, under the normal procedure I cannot quickly grant a commutation – we must give prosecutors, judges, and victims notice of at least 60 days – and that’s after all the appropriate paperwork has been filed.

Because of these individuals’ medical vulnerability, the fact that some would not qualify for judicial release and the need to consider these cases quickly, I'm taking the following action.

We are asking judges and prosecutors associated with these cases to waive the 60 days notice so that they can take these cases directly to the parole board. The parole board is prepared to meet start meeting on Friday to address these matters.

In these 26 cases, it is a statutory requirement that the parole board to consider and make a recommendation on each of these cases. In those cases where there are specific victims, those victims will receive notice and have the opportunity for their voices to be heard.

After the parole board makes a recommendation on these 26 cases, I’ll act quickly to make my decision in respect to each case.

If the parole board recommends that a sentence be commuted, they can also recommend additional conditions on the release of the inmate. As governor, I can accept and/or add conditions. If the conditions are violated, they'll serve their remaining sentence.

Overall, these are all tough decisions. We are trying to take a measured and reasonable approach that protects the public and tries to minimize the spread.