When people get old inside of prison, they’re still supposed to have rights just like anyone else. But authorities are putting their lives at risk! The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique threat to this aging population, and authorities are coming up with BAD solutions.
In New York, they created a prison nursing home to transfer aging prisoners to. This move ignored the danger of both prisons and nursing homes during the pandemic, and the coronavirus hit the facility shortly after!
The solution to this issue? It was ignored.
Allowing the incarcerated elderly to go home helps prisons avoid becoming even larger incubators of the virus that threatens public health. Hundreds of elderly people in prisons around the country have been given compassionate release - but some are avoiding this despite the benefits.
Activists and families are demanding the release of their elderly loved ones from prison facilities during the pandemic. Being inside may mean a death sentence, even though you’re not on Death Row! That’s a risk no state should take, and it affects us all if they do.
States like New York, that are avoiding compassionate release of elderly prisoners, are not proving the point they think they are. As countless Black elders die and/or have their lives put at risk for nothing, it’s clear this isn’t about safety. If it was, they’d be releasing people!