Earlier this year, Public Health Law Watch, in collaboration with members of the George Consortium and other partner organizations, hosted a series of legal briefings related to COVID-19 and legal and policy issues associated with the global pandemic. Experts and scholars joined us for bi-weekly livestreamed discussions on these issues. We invite you to read the summaries of selected episodes below! And, enjoy relistening to the series (linked below and archived on our #COVIDLawBriefing webpage).
----------
3/31/20: Impacts and Implications for US prisons
Mod: Scott Burris
Speaker: Leo Beletsky
This pilot episode of the #COVIDLawBriefing brought to us by the George Consortium started with the topic of the legal implications of COVID-19 on prisons. Professor Beletsky began by discussing the history of prisons as “incubators for infections,” citing the examples of influenza and HIV. In prison, inmates are living in close quarters and guards go back and forth from their homes to prison, thus greatly expanding the amount of people enclosed in their “bubble.” Professor Beletsky recommended trying to release people as quickly as possible, especially those who were not convicted of crimes, such as people detained pretrail or those in immigration detention. People in immigration detention centers, or those detained pretrial are being exposed to risks that could be alleviated through various legal avenues. There are two central laws that could be invoked to lower our prison population. The first is enforcement discretion; this is the many actors throughout the legal system from police to judges who have the ability to either stop sending so many people to jail or releasing them early to use their power. The other key power is statutory, this is that governors or judges could use the precedent set from earlier epidemics to “depopulate the prisons” and curtail the spread of infectious diseases. The whole legal system from police to judges have the opportunity to try to avoid jail time, but Beletsky predicted a slow response from our law enforcement. With bloated jail times, and already crowded prisons Beletsky described the situation as “a nursing home behind bars.”
----------
Public Health Law Watch’s COVID Law Briefings are co-sponsored by the Center for Health Policy and Law at Northeastern University School of Law, the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University Beasley School of Law, the Network for Public Health Law, and the APHA Law Section.