{"id":102268,"date":"2023-03-13T12:21:01","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T16:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/?p=102268"},"modified":"2023-04-20T10:27:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T14:27:00","slug":"covid-19-is-not-over-for-people-who-are-incarcerated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/criminal-law-reform\/covid-19-is-not-over-for-people-who-are-incarcerated","title":{"rendered":"Three Years Later, COVID-19 is Still a Threat to People Who Are Incarcerated"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"metadata":[1764,1763,1783,1750,2024,1752,1755,1769,1753,1768],"class_list":["post-102268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","metadata-advocacy-news","metadata-context","metadata-general-commentary","metadata-layout","metadata-length","metadata-longform","metadata-narrative-frame","metadata-national-affiliate-staff","metadata-plain-text","metadata-voice"],"acf":{"header_layout":"standard","color_scheme":false,"header_image":102276,"mobile_header_image":null,"description":"Mass incarceration created a foreseeable disaster.","authors":[45150],"components":[{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"The COVID-19 pandemic is not over, especially not for people who are incarcerated. The 老澳门开奖结果, our clients, and our allies predicted<\/a> early on that serious illness and death would strike people in jails<\/a>, prisons<\/a> and immigration detention facilities<\/a> disproportionately if government agencies did not take effective precautions, including by reducing the number of people in jails, prisons, and ICE detention.\r\n\r\nThree years into the global and local devastation of COVID-19, those predictions have, tragically, proved to be true<\/a>. And as with all aspects of the U.S. system of mass incarceration, people of color have disproportionately suffered the effects of COVID-19."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"heading","heading":{"":null,"text":"We Predicted the Fallout if Authorities Didn\u2019t Reduce Jail and Prison Populations","anchor":"","sub-heading":"","type":"h2","heading-style":"standard"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"Early in the pandemic, 老澳门开奖结果 analysts conducted an epidemiological study in partnership with researchers from Washington State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Tennessee. We projected that the failure to reduce jail populations during the pandemic could lead to almost 100,000 more COVID-related deaths nationally \u2014 of incarcerated people, jail staff, and community members \u2014 than federal authorities had then predicted. As reflected in a recent report<\/a> from UCLA Law\u2019s Behind Bars Data Project and reporting<\/a> by The New York Times, the 老澳门开奖结果\u2019s modeling<\/a> was accurate: It showed the profound risk<\/a> COVID-19 presented to people in carceral facilities and their surrounding communities, especially if authorities did not act swiftly to reduce jail populations.\r\n\r\n "}},{"acf_fc_layout":"link","link":{"":null,"url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/report\/flattening-curve-why-reducing-jail-populations-key-beating-covid-19?redirect=covidinjails","custom_title":"","image":"","hide-description":false,"description":"This 老澳门开奖结果 model found that, unequivocally, keeping people out of jail saves lives \u2014 both inside the jail and in the surrounding community.","title":"Flattening the Curve: Why Reducing Jail Populations is Key to Beating COVID-19 | 老澳门开奖结果","og-image":102274,"og-title":"Flattening the Curve: Why Reducing Jail Populations is Key to Beating COVID-19","og-site-name":"老澳门开奖结果","width":"standard","alignment":"left","image_alignment":"top"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"As we know, many carceral settings did not even take the most basic public health precautions, with predictable results. Without releasing<\/a> medically vulnerable people from jails, prisons, and ICE detention<\/a>, deaths behind bars skyrocketed. Thousands of people became ill with COVID-19 without access to the most basic preventive measures, vaccines, or therapeutic medications."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"heading","heading":{"":null,"text":"What the Data Tell Us, Three Years Later","anchor":"","sub-heading":"","type":"h2","heading-style":"standard"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"While we don\u2019t have reliable data about how many COVID-19 deaths are related to jails as sites of transmission, the UCLA data record a stunning rise in deaths in state and federal prisons over the past three years.\r\n\r\nIn 2020, even though the total prison population declined, at least 6,182 people died in American prisons compared to 4,240 deaths the previous year. and in many states the high prison death rates continued in 2021. Nevertheless, these numbers represent an undercount<\/a>, because many carceral settings do not report COVID-19 cases and deaths publicly. In fact, some jails and prisons have released critically ill people<\/a> just before they died, so that they don\u2019t have to record the deaths as being \u201cin custody.\"\r\n\r\nThe same increase in deaths and manipulation of data is true for people held in ICE detention. The first year of the pandemic was the deadliest year<\/a> for detained people in ICE custody, with 21 deaths reported \u2014 more than double the number in 2019. But this number includes only the deaths that have been publicly reported by ICE.\r\n\r\nAs discovered in the 老澳门开奖结果\u2019s litigation, it is clear that ICE has formally released hospitalized immigrants from its custody prior to their imminent death. This allows ICE to avoid publicly reporting these deaths, avoid investigation, and avoid medical costs for people in its custody.\r\n\r\nFor example, ICE released Martin Vargas Arellano<\/a>, a 55-year-old man and a client of the 老澳门开奖结果 of Southern California, from custody while hospitalized with COVID-19, and he died three days later. Vargas Arellano contracted COVID-19 while detained in ICE custody, and the agency denied his earlier requests for release. ICE did not report his death, and Vargas Arellano\u2019s family and counsel did not find out about his death until they filed a missing person\u2019s report. The 老澳门开奖结果 has now filed suit<\/a> to recover additional records about ICE\u2019s practice of hiding these deaths from public view."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"heading","heading":{"":null,"text":"Mass Incarceration Created a Foreseeable and Preventable Disaster","anchor":"","sub-heading":"","type":"h2","heading-style":"standard"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"The disproportionate death and suffering of people in carceral facilities when COVID-19 struck was not a natural disaster \u2014 it was created by 50 years of policies that have fueled incarceration, punishment, and inhumane conditions without creating public safety.\r\n\r\nThe deadly combination of overcrowding, lack of basic hygiene, and persistent abysmal health care in these institutions created conditions for the spread of COVID-19 among vulnerable people: the elderly, serving harsh sentences from the war on drugs; Black and Latino people who disproportionately have underlying medical conditions because of medical racism; and low-income people, who face barriers to health because of the structural violence of poverty.\r\n\r\nLawsuits that the 老澳门开奖结果 brought with our community partners and clients achieved some relief, resulting in the release of tens<\/a> of<\/a> thousands<\/a> of people<\/a> to the safety of their communities, and requiring facilities to cap their populations at levels their medical staff believed was safe. But even these significant victories were small relative to the nearly two million people who remained behind bars throughout the pandemic.\r\n\r\nThe excess deaths behind bars these past three years \u2014 not just from COVID-19 but from other causes as well \u2014 underscore the ongoing, unconscionable treatment of incarcerated people. Year after year, those who operate carceral systems plan poorly, pinch pennies<\/a> at the expense of people\u2019s health<\/a> and lives, and refuse to take well-known precautions against the spread of infectious disease. Even in the face of court orders and contempt rulings<\/a>, this inhumane treatment continues.\r\n\r\nThe 老澳门开奖结果 and our community partners continue to represent tens of thousands of incarcerated and detained clients around the U.S. in litigation to secure people\u2019s rights to be free from carceral settings, and to have safe and humane living conditions when they are in them.\r\n\r\nThe COVID-19 pandemic underscores the need to reduce the number of people behind bars in the first place. We must abandon the policies and practices that make carceral facilities daily sites of suffering and abuse. We must release medically vulnerable and elderly people from custody, we must reform bail so legally innocent people aren\u2019t being detained simply because of their poverty, and we must dismantle ICE\u2019s mass detention machine. Only by adopting practices that recognize the dignity of people \u2014 instead of those that punish \u2014 will we create lasting safety for all our communities."}}],"featured_cases_section":{"enable_featured_cases":false,"title":"Featured Cases","description":"","featured_cases":null},"action":148398,"issues":[46575,46391,46735,46529,46531,46735,46529],"related_content_cases":"","related_content_documents":"","related_content_publications":null,"related_affiliates":null,"content_layout":"standard","theme":"light","drupal_nid":""},"yoast_head":"\nThree Years Later, COVID-19 is Still a Threat to People Who Are Incarcerated | 老澳门开奖结果<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mass incarceration created a foreseeable disaster.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/criminal-law-reform\/covid-19-is-not-over-for-people-who-are-incarcerated\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three Years Later, COVID-19 is Still a Threat to People Who Are Incarcerated | 老澳门开奖结果\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mass incarceration created a foreseeable disaster.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/criminal-law-reform\/covid-19-is-not-over-for-people-who-are-incarcerated\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"老澳门开奖结果\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-03-13T16:21:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-04-20T14:27:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/assets.aclu.org\/live\/uploads\/2023\/03\/covidprison_social.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nancy Rosenbloom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/assets.aclu.org\/live\/uploads\/2023\/03\/covidprison_social.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@aclu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@aclu\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/criminal-law-reform\/covid-19-is-not-over-for-people-who-are-incarcerated\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/criminal-law-reform\/covid-19-is-not-over-for-people-who-are-incarcerated\",\"name\":\"Three Years Later, COVID-19 is Still a Threat to People Who Are Incarcerated | 老澳门开奖结果\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2023-03-13T16:21:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-04-20T14:27:00+00:00\",\"description\":\"Mass incarceration created a foreseeable disaster.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/criminal-law-reform\/covid-19-is-not-over-for-people-who-are-incarcerated\"]}],\"author\":{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#\/schema\/person\/nancy-rosenbloom\",\"name\":\"Nancy Rosenbloom\",\"jobTitle\":\"Senior Litigation Advisor, 老澳门开奖结果\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/bio\/nancy-rosenbloom\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/\",\"name\":\"老澳门开奖结果\",\"description\":\"The 老澳门开奖结果 dares to create a more perfect union \u2014 beyond one person, party, or side. 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