To reduce the incarcerated population, the report recommends that law enforcement issue citations in lieu of arrests. RIDOC has also faced calls from state public defenders and the Decarcerate Now Coalition to immediately reduce the number of people behind bars, The Herald previously reported. 21, according to the Rhode Island Department of Corrections’ Facebook page. But the rate in state prisons is currently more than five times that, with 66 cases per 100 incarcerated people as of Jan.

In Rhode Island, there have been 10 reported COVID-19 cases for every 100 people, according to the New York Times. “The people who are hit hardest with COVID are those who are unable to quarantine appropriately and appropriately social distance, and that includes those who are incarcerated and living in close quarters,” she said. People in the facilities “breathe the same air, eat at the same cafeteria, use the same toilets, use the same recreation areas and sometimes sleep in the same areas.”Įloho Akpovi MD ’21, a member of the student group Against Racism in Medicine, cited similar challenges. Correctional facilities need to be testing individuals, keeping them separated, ensuring air circulation and performing contact tracing.īut “the problem in correctional facilities is that there isn’t six feet in between everybody” to ensure adequate social distancing, Rich said. “The same strategies you use on the inside, you use on the outside,” Rich said. Good health and safety in the pandemic era will require reducing incarceration and supporting the communities whose incarceration rates are the highest,” Jody Rich, professor of medicine and epidemiology, told The Herald. The report, titled “ Decarcerating Correctional Facilities During COVID-19: Advancing Health, Equity and Safety, ” was put together by a panel of criminal justice and public health experts assembled by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and which included University.Ĭorrectional facilities “have posed a threat to public safety.

19 provided recommendations for managing the COVID-19 pandemic in prisons and jails, which have become hotspots for the spread of COVID-19.

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