Posted on 10/28/2020 7:06:20 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
The population in America’s big jails and state prisons plunged by 170,000 this spring amid the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters has found in a survey of facilities around the country. All told, localities and states held 11% fewer inmates in their custody.
The unprecedented mass release was a crash effort to contain the disease. But it is also providing the United States with an opportunity to experiment with a big idea: unwinding the country’s signature practice of mass incarceration.
America locks away far more people – 2.1 million – than any other nation. In jails, which largely hold people awaiting trial, thousands have died behind bars without being convicted of the charges they faced, a Reuters investigation found.
With tens of thousands suddenly freed or diverted from entering jail, some governments see COVID-19 as a chance to change the policies that led many inmates to be locked up in the first place.
In February, as COVID-19 surged through a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, in the first big U.S. outbreak, authorities assessed the risk to 1,945 inmates in the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle and the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.
Critics of the mass releases fear freeing inmates will lead to a surge in crime. “This is going to set us back. This is going to mean more crimes,” Sheriff Margaret Mims of Fresno County, California, said in a video posted on Facebook.
Some communities, to be sure, have begun re-filling their jails and reverting to old policies. Yet other counties are considering keeping temporary reforms in place.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
And people wonder why there’s an ammo shortage...
...or fill the ranks of Antifa, BLM, and other leftist revolutionary organizations in order to accelerate societal breakdown
Here in NYS...we don’t even put criminals in jail anymore. They’re out till they’re tried.
Great, and what has crime done? Duh...
Aren’t 90% of inmates illegals ?
Fast way to deal with mass incarceration, swift death penalty for all felony convictions. This was the way it was 200 years ago, I see no good from long term incarceration. None.
What a disingenuous way to phrase this. Reverting to old policies, as if police are out there rounding up innocent people. The released convicts are committing crimes again.
We’re a bit ahead of the curve here in the People’s Republic of Commiefornia. “We” passed Prop 47, which classified things like gun theft and possession of date rape drugs as misdemeanors rather than felonies. Californian Freepers please vote yes on Prop 20 to reverse these reckless and feckless “reforms”. Make California safe again.
They had to let the CRIMINALS go - to make room for those who won’t comply with MASK WEARING.
18 months from now headlines from drive-by media: “Surge in Crime UNEXPECTED.”
They had to let the CRIMINALS go - to make room for those who won’t comply with MASK WEARING.
Has anyone actually been imprisoned just for not wearing a mask?
Hmmm...and social unrest skyrocketed...
What could possibly go wrong?
I’m not in charge of that, so I don’t know.
But I have seen lots of video of average folks being ARRESTED for not wearing masks.
The only people,who are in prison in WA State are those who deserve to be there, almost all felonies are routinely reduced misdemeanors and the accused are back on the streets within 24 hours, unless the case involves an unusual prosecutor and judge, who takes the rule of law seriously.
It seems to be standard practice in WA, to declare any murderer to be criminally insane and send them to Western State hospital for 3.5 years or until they are judged able to stand trial. If that is never achieved, the person is released on what they call “special community probation”, which is unsupervised and just sends the person back to where he came from.
I know this because I asked, when a local man was arrested for killing his father by bashing him over the head with a hammer and was about to cut him up and bury him behind the garage, when the police showed up for a wellness check. He was finally going to face trial, prior to a June 2020 release date, when the prosecutor pulled the Covid virus excuse. Thank goodness, the judge wasn’t having any of it and held him on new charges of violating a restraining order. He is now in the local prison.
There is no connection or correlation between record murder rates and the numbers of convicts released from prison.
Followed by 500,000 more crimes than the year before (just a guess, no source).
If Harris wins in November, the whole nation will be locked down (incarcerated).
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