Law enforcement are being instructed to not detain people at county jails and municipal lock-ups due to the corona-virus pandemic. They are being directed to not make as many arrests for nonviolent and/or victim-less vice related crimes. This is essentially a last minute rushed reform that is effectively a "book and release" program coupled with a diversionary practice at the point of police contact. Why did we have to wait until now to implement this?


The courts are finding new means to conduct proceedings remotely. They are learning how to wield their power by using their policy and decree to effectively have prosecutors and law enforcement lessen the amount of people coming across their dockets. This was always possible. The chief judge, presiding judges in Circuit Courts, the District Attorney, all of these actors could've lessened the amount of people incarcerated by diverting them through lessening their charges and thereby lessening their sentences (escaping mandatory minimum requirements). Why did we have to wait until now to implement this?

Crime and violence don't always necessarily spike due to an absence of authority figures maintaining so-called "laws". Correlation doesn't equal causation. In fact, in the wake of 2 NYPD officers being assassinated in their vehicle, their department slowed down on law enforcement and what was found is that crime *decreased* by over 60+%. That means less cops actually meant *less crime*.

During this time I want people to sincerely re-evaluate not just healthcare and the way we screen for diseases. I want people to re-imagine the way we dispatch so-called "justice" in the United States. I want people to understand that Iran has furloughed over 70,000+ of its incarcerated people due to this pandemic, that Italy has had more than 27+ prison uprisings due to closing visitations, and that these prisons are literal incubators of viruses, infections, and diseases. For the elderly, immuno-deficient, and/or immunocompromised incarcerated people (many of which have more than served their sentences or are utterly incapable of harming anyone else due to their current state) that are currently trapped in these facilities I call upon the people outside to demand their local representatives, senators, mayors, supervisors, governors, commissioners, chief judges, district attorneys, secretaries/superintendents, directors, and whatever to divert people from being incarcerated, stop arresting as many people so flippantly and needlessly, and start to grant compassionate release through re-sentencing, commutations, parole, early release programming, and less overly punitive supervision in general.

People in centralized institutions like schools, hospitals, prisons, mental health institutions, detention centers, nursing homes, and more are in especially dire circumstances and are at an elevated risk. Please care about those that are stuck in these facilities no matter the reason they are currently there. In most these instances these individuals were never sentenced to death, or to being subjected to the risk of debilitating disease, demand that those holding them take the utmost care to protect these oftentimes voiceless and forgotten people. Check on your people in institutions and demand that the people with power and clout do everything in their power to keep these people healthy and happy despite their circumstances. Nobody deserves to be treated as disposable just because of their limited, if not forced, movement, autonomy, and confinement.

When we witness what our government can rapidly do when faced with this current crisis, ask yourselves: "Why didn't this government view the people it's been needlessly and wastefully churning through its carceral clutches as a "crisis" before now?"