Bay Area

Opinion: Let Prisoners Go During COVID-19 Pandemic

Published

5 years ago

May 7, 2020

Across the United States and across the world, prisoners are among the most vulnerable to the coronavirus. Overcrowded facilities, shortages of food and medicine, and totally inadequate testing expose prisoners who are disproportionately poor and afflicted with prior conditions that render them vulnerable to the disease.

Prisoners increasingly are protesting their conditions, objecting to being sentenced to die in prison.

Experts across the world are urging governments to reduce their prison populations swiftly. Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations high commissioner for Human Rights, warned that “The consequences of neglecting [overcrowded conditions] are potentially catastrophic.”

Many countries have begun to act. Turkey’s parliament authorized the release of 45,000 prisoners. Indonesia has released at least 30,000. Even Iran’s dictatorial regime has released roughly 85,000 detainees while dealing harshly with those protesting the risks.

The United States locks up more people than any other country in the world, largely because of harsh and wrong-headed policies. Fifty-five thousand are detained in jail awaiting trials, too poor to pay for their freedom under the current cash bail system that is prevalent in many states.

The Prison Policy Initiative reports that 48,000 children are incarcerated on any given day. Many are charged only with “status offenses,” such as truancy or homelessness. The Health and Human Services office in charge of the custody of unaccompanied undocumented minors reports that 2,000 are locked up. The New York Times reports that 59 in custody have already tested positive for COVID-19.

In California, The Marshall Project notes, more than one in seven prisoners are over the age of 55. The percentage of those 55 and older in prison in the country has tripled over the course of this century.

As Piper Kerman, author of “Orange is the New Black,” wrote in the Washington Post, this is largely the result of prison sentences that are longer than those imposed by any other country. “Elderly probationers and parolees have some of the lowest recidivism rates of all former inmates. Releasing such people poses very low public safety risks and will have a dramatic effect on preserving public health.”

After an outbreak killed six inmates in a federal prison in Lisbon, Ohio, U.S. District Court Judge James Gwin decried the “shockingly limited” amount of testing, noting that the prison has received fewer than 100 tests, while a state prison of similar size had done about 4,000 tests. Two federal prisons in New York City reported that they had tested a total of only 19 inmates since the outbreak began; 11 were positive.

This has to change before the pandemic spreads, and prisons across the country go up in flames as prisoners riot against their conditions.

Inmates awaiting trial, the elderly, the afflicted, and those who have served much of their sentence should get early release if possible quarantined at home to ensure they are safe.

The space freed up should be used to provide more “social distancing,” while emergency steps are taken to provide adequate medicine, protective equipment like masks and gloves, and food.

Correctional officials need particular priority, for they are most at risk and, if infected, could spread the virus in the local communities. And the failure to provide adequate testing in prisons and jails, as well as in society as a whole, is utterly inexcusable at this late date.

The crisis should also lead to larger reforms— drastically reducing sentences while expanding alternatives to incarceration, ending the cash bail system and the practice of locking poor people up while they await trial, expanding parole, reducing the overcrowded and primitive conditions of too many jails and prisons.

The virus is like getting hit by a club across the head. Perhaps that might help bring us to our senses.

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Posts by Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Related Topics:COVID-19 featured pandemic prisoners The Marshall Project

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Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

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Bay Area

Oakland Awarded $28 Million Grant from Governor Newsom to Sustain Long-Term Solutions Addressing Homelessness

Governor Gavin Newsom announced the City of Oakland has won a$28,446,565.83 grant as part of the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) grant program. This program provides flexible grant funding to help communities support people experiencing homelessness by creating permanent housing, rental and move-in assistance, case management services, and rental subsidies, among other eligible uses.

Published

18 hours ago

November 4, 2024

Oakland Post

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao

Governor Gavin Newsom announced the City of Oakland has won a$28,446,565.83 grant as part of the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) grant program.

This program provides flexible grant funding to help communities support people experiencing homelessness by creating permanent housing, rental and move-in assistance, case management services, and rental subsidies, among other eligible uses.

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and the Oakland City Administrator’s Office staff held a press conference today to discuss the grant and the City’s successful implementing of the Mayor’s Executive Order on the Encampment Management Policy.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Bay Area

Pamela Price Appoints Deputy D.A. Jennifer Kassan as New Director of Community Support Bureau

On Monday, District Attorney Pamela Price announced Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Kassan as the new director of the Community Support Bureau. Kassan has over 25 years of experience as an attorney and advisor for mission-driven enterprises including benefit corporations, low-profit limited liability companies, nonprofits, cooperatives, hybrid organizations, investment funds, and purpose trusts.

Published

18 hours ago

November 4, 2024

Oakland Post

Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Kassan. Courtesy photo.

Special to The Post

On Monday, District Attorney Pamela Price announced Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Kassan as the new director of the Community Support Bureau.

Kassan has over 25 years of experience as an attorney and advisor for mission-driven enterprises including benefit corporations, low-profit limited liability companies, nonprofits, cooperatives, hybrid organizations, investment funds, and purpose trusts.

Working in the DA’s new administration since 2023, Kassan was most recently assigned to the Organized Retail Theft Prosecution team.

Kassan has a master’s degree in City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She received a National Science Foundation Fellowship from Yale Law School, and graduated from Yale Law School in 1995. She earned her B.A. in Psychology with a minor emphasis in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley.

Kassan’s education, extensive legal background, list of notable accomplishments and impressive resume includes helping to found and lead multiple organizations to support community wealth building including:

Community Ventures, a nonprofit organization that promotes locally-based community economic development,
the Sustainable Economies Law Center, a nonprofit that provides legal information, training, and representation to support sustainable economies
the Force for Good Fund, a nonprofit impact investment fund
Crowdfund Main Street, a licensed portal for regulation crowdfunding
Opportunity Main Street, a place-based ecosystem building organization that supports under-represented entrepreneurs and provides education about community-based investing.

In addition, Kassan served as an elected member of the City Council of Fremont, California from 2018 to 2024, and on the Securities and Exchange Commission Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies.

In 2020 she was named to the list of World-Changing Women in Conscious Business by SOCAP Global.

“We are excited to see Jenny accept the role as the new leader for the Community Support Bureau,” said Price. “She brings a wealth of talent, experience, and a vision to expand our office’s engagement with community groups and residents, that will level-up our

outreach programs and partnerships with local organizations with the aim of promoting crime prevention.

“We thank Interim CSB Director Esther Lemus, who is now assigned to our office’s

Restitution Unit, for her hard work and a great job fostering positive relationships between the DAO and the community.”

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Bay Area

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s Open Letter to Philip Dreyfuss, Recall Election’s Primary Funder

Oaklanders Defending Democracy, a group opposing the recall of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, shared an open letter she wrote to Philip Dreyfuss of Farallon Capital, a coal hedge fund. According to Thao’s supporters, “Dreyfuss is the primary funder of the recall effort to remove her from office. He has not explained his motivations or answered one question about why he’s funding the recall or what his agenda is for Oakland.

Published

19 hours ago

November 4, 2024

Oakland Post

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao

Special to The Post

Publishers note: Oaklanders Defending Democracy, a group opposing the recall of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, shared an open letter she wrote to Philip Dreyfuss of Farallon Capital, a coal hedge fund.

According to Thao’s supporters, “Dreyfuss is the primary funder of the recall effort to remove her from office. He has not explained his motivations or answered one question about why he’s funding the recall or what his agenda is for Oakland.

“All we know about him is his firm has invested over $2 billion in coal since 2022. Farallon Capital is a global hedge fund with $39 billion capital under management, headquartered in San Francisco, the supporters say.

The effort to recall Mayor Sheng Thao was built on top of an argument about a crime wave, pinning the blame for it on a newly elected Mayor. Now that crime has dropped massively, recall proponents are left with no compelling argument.

Oct. 30

Dear Philip Dreyfuss,

We haven’t met. As you know, I’m the Mayor of Oakland, elected in 2022 to serve and protect this city. Since stepping into office, I’ve tackled rising crime, homelessness, and budget challenges head-on, working tirelessly for Oakland’s future.

You are a hedge-fund manager and coal investor who doesn’t live in Oakland who is trying to buy our city government. But the people didn’t elect you, they elected me to protect them from people like you.

Shortly after my term began, you launched a campaign to remove me from office, pouring in nearly $500,000 of your own wealth. We’ll know the outcome of your campaign on Nov. 6, but let’s be clear about what’s at stake.

Since I took office, crime has dropped over 30%—we’re on track for less than 100 homicides for the first time since 2019, with 15,000 fewer crimes overall.

We’ve invested hundreds of millions into affordable housing, modernized our 911 system, streamlined construction permitting, and are fighting to make Oakland a safer and cleaner city.

If your recall succeeds, Oakland will see four mayors in just five years, another election for mayor the following year and a whopping $10 million cost to taxpayers. In other words, chaos. None of this will impact you because you don’t live here.

Oaklanders deserve to know who you are. I looked into your record and found that the hedge fund you help manage, Farallon Capital, has invested over $2 billion in coal since 2022.

For years, Oakland has stood tall against coal money threatening the health of West Oakland, Chinatown, Jack London and downtown.

Did you know that life expectancy in West Oakland is 7.5 years lower than the County average? Or that our children suffer from asthma at a rate twice as high as the rest of the County?

Philip, instead of trying to use your wealth to hijack our democracy and create chaos in our city you could have put your money where your mouth is.

Instead of investing in coal you could have invested in our young people—created scholarships for our college-bound kids, funded apprenticeships for those who want to learn a trade or helped rid our schools of lead.

Instead, you chose to divide us while you try to buy us. But I’m here to tell you, Philip, on behalf of the 450,000 residents of my city that Oakland is not for sale. NO to coal. NO to chaos. And NO to your selfish and self-serving recall.

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, City Hall, Oakland