Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Concerns Inside Prisons: 'Staff Are Starting To Get Fearful', Inmates Argue For Release
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)
Coronavirus has become a 鈥済et out of jail鈥 card for hundreds of low-level inmates across the country, and even hard-timers are seeking their freedom with the argument that it鈥檚 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鈥檚 former personal attorney Michael Cohen, Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff and dozens of inmates at New York City鈥檚 Rikers Island, part of a jail system that lost an employee to the virus this week. (Mustian and Goodman, 3/18)