|
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Daily Appeal will offer a roundup of stories about the effect on marginalized and vulnerable people, and their struggle for safety and well-being.
Ohio will resume sending people to prison: Ohio ranks second in the number of coronavirus cases per capita in prison and fourth in the number of COVID-19 deaths per person in prison, according to an analysis by the Marshall Project. About 4,500 people in the state’s prisons have tested positive for the coronavirus, even in the absence of universal testing. Nevertheless, the state has decided to resume sending people from county jails to state prisons, previously suspended in the face of the pandemic, citing the reopening of courts as the reason. Advocates say it is the opposite of what is needed, and that thousands must be released from an overcrowded prison system. [Associated Press] Last week, Michelle Alexander wrote in an opinion article in the New York Times about the dire conditions in Ohio prisons and the argument made by advocates in Ohio that “releasing 20,000 [people] is the baseline.”
Massachusetts public defenders describe ‘the stress, the fear, the desperation’ they hear from incarcerated clients: Public defenders in Massachusetts recently told MassLive how their work has changed during the pandemic. “On a daily basis, you’re getting calls from clients from the jail, and I’ve never heard the stress, the fear, the desperation that I was hearing consistently in every single phone call,” one said. “Cases aren’t moving right now. We’re not resolving cases, so people are just going to sit until this is over, unless they get out.” The state’s highest court has authorized the presumptive release of some pretrial detainees. Randy Gioa, who oversees the state’s public defender division said this has become the office’s highest priority now. “We want to try to get out as many of our clients as we can,” he said. “That is the main focus of the work of a public defender right now.” [Jackson Cote / MassLive] A report released in April from the Justice Collaborative Institute described the experience of public defenders battling to save their clients. Brendon Woods, chief defender of Alameda County, told researchers, “any jail sentence right now could be a death sentence.”
A California county guarantees basic income for youth transitioning out of foster care: Last week, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors approved a basic income program for young people transitioning out of foster care. The county will provide $1,000 a month to 72 eligible youth. The program, a pilot that will run from June 2020 through May 2021, is an effort to help provide stability for young people who often struggle to find housing and jobs. It is believed to be the first such program in the country. [Nicholas Chan / San Jose Spotlight]
Fed looks at burden of court fines and fees: A new analysis by the Federal Reserve Board reveals that 6 percent of all adults in the U.S., and 12 percent of Black families, are in debt from court-imposed fines and fees. The 2019 Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households is the first time the Fed has examined the impact of criminal legal system debt, according to Lauren-Brooke Eisen of the Brennan Center for Justice. Eisen noted that although many jurisdictions are waiving collection of fines and fees during the pandemic, it is possible that some localities and states could increase their reliance on them during an economic downturn. “We saw after the last recession that courts started to increase the amounts of fees that they asked users to pay because they needed to raise revenue,” she told Law360. “That's a huge fear right now.” [R.J. Vogt / Law360]
|
