Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Concerns Inside Prisons: 'Staff Are Starting To Get Fearful', Inmates Argue For Release
The New York Times: ‘We Are Not A Hospital’: Inside A Prison Bracing For The Coronavirus
Packed into a crowded federal prison complex with not enough masks, soap or hand sanitizer, and the sole doctor out sick, corrections workers in Tallahassee, Fla., were worried. Then on Monday, a new inmate arrived and was immediately put into quarantine. And on Tuesday, a bus with almost a dozen inmates from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center showed up. They were scheduled for quarantine, too. And all had elevated temperatures. (Ivory, 3/17)
The Associated Press: Get Out Of Jail? Inmates Fearful Of Virus Argue For Release
Coronavirus has become a “get out of jail” card for hundreds of low-level inmates across the country, and even hard-timers are seeking their freedom with the argument that it’s not a matter of if but when the deadly illness sweeps through tightly packed populations behind bars. Among those pleading for compassionate release or home detention are the former head of the Cali drug cartel, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen, Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff and dozens of inmates at New York City’s Rikers Island, part of a jail system that lost an employee to the virus this week. (Mustian and Goodman, 3/18)
