My district representative Ruth Briggs King writes expressing concern over allowing early release of some 800 inmates because of their increased risk to COVID-19, arguing that they are being “rewarded simply for being incarcerated during a public health emergency” and goes on to say “for every crime there is a victim.”
I respectfully beg to differ. The public health emergency is, in fact, an emergency that mandates reducing prison populations. Prisons are, by their design and operational requirements, not equipped to provide a reasonable health safety environment for either their inmates or their staff. Secondly, not every “crime” has a “victim.” Non-violent offenders serving time for minor crimes and those serving for parole violations should be returned to freedom without delay.
To cite a single case, where a victim maintains they were not given sufficient notice of an inmate’s release, to justify keeping inmates incarcerated in order to extract every day of their sentence while doing so exposes them to serious illness - even death - amounts to scare tactics designed to play on fear - nothing more. It is certainly not justice - much less mercy.
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