How America’s Incarcerated Are More Vulnerable Than Ever

FEATURING ALICE SPERI –  As Americans struggle with the coronavirus pandemic, the government appears to be ignoring the fate of a significant portion of the US population – the incarcerated. Millions of people are held behind bars in local county jails and state and federal prisons. Considering the lack of an organized federal plan to tackle the spread of the virus overall, it is no surprise that prisons are being left to their own devices.

Given the close quarters that prisoners are held in, Covid-19 has spread like wildfire inside prison facilities. Many states are only now scrambling to test inmates and finding serious waves of infections that could hurt prisoners, prison guards and others. According to my guest the Trump administration has failed to account for the uniquely American risk factor of our mass incarceration. The data is grim and Alice Speri writing in The Intercept shares that, “In the handful of facilities with higher test rates, most people were found to be positive. Eight of the 10 largest outbreaks in the country are in prisons and jails.”

Read Alice Speri’s article ‘Mass Incarceration Poses a Unique American Risk in the Coronavirus Pandemic,’ HERE.

Alice Speri, reporter for The Intercept specializing in justice, immigration, and civil rights.