Gov. Newsom can save lives from COVID-19 by reducing California prison population

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been praised for his swift action to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The governor’s March 19 statewide shelter-in-place order appears to have spared his constituents the fate of those in hot spots such as New York City, where thousands have died and tens of thousands more are ill.

But there is a significant segment of the state’s population that Newsom has failed to protect: the 118,000 people serving sentences in California prisons and the 37,000 people who work there.

While the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation ordered the release of 3,500 prisoners on March 31, that small sliver of the overall population had just weeks remaining on their sentences. Nothing has been done to protect those most vulnerable to the virus, including the elderly, people with underlying conditions and the corrections officers who are effectively first responders on the front lines of the pandemic.

COVID-19 is already inside California’s prison system and spreading fast, with the number of confirmed cases more than tripling over the last two weeks. Earlier this week, the CDCR announced that 194 prisoners had tested positive for the virus and at least 132 staff have been stricken.

One inmate’s daughter told the Los Angeles Times, “He feels like he’s in a Nazi Germany death camp. They basically locked them all in the ‘sick’ dorm and are only taking guys out with a high fever.” A 73-year-old woman imprisoned at the California Institution for Women told the San Francisco Chronicle that the women are “squeezed tight in the housing unit” and “all feel like we are sitting ducks, fearful of becoming dead ducks.”

Newsom has the authority to act now, before the outbreak spirals out of control. An important first step is releasing tens of thousands of people who are elderly, medically vulnerable, or scheduled to be released within the next year.

This plan has the approval of doctors, public health experts, judges, and even some prosecutors. It’s also what California voters want. New polling data we published in a report for The Justice Collaborative and Data for Progress shows broad bipartisan support for reducing California’s prison population to protect the broader public health. In fact, 61 percent support releasing elderly incarcerated people, while a majority also supports releasing people at-risk because of health conditions and people with under a year to serve.

California’s prisons are overcrowded and unsanitary, making them ripe for the spread of COVID-19. But make no mistake, a coronavirus outbreak behind bars will not remain there.

Over 20 of the state’s prisons employ at least 1,000 staff. That means thousands of people go to prison for work each day and engage with thousands more in a closed environment where we have deprived those we incarcerate of access to basic health care and virtually every sanitary product recommended to combat the contagion. And at the end of their shifts, these staffers return home to their families and communities.

This is a matter of our mutual survival.

California prisons are notoriously, even unconstitutionally, overcrowded. Our state prison system currently holds 33,000 more people than the maximum of 85,000 it was designed for. One in seven face an elevated threat of severe illness or death from COVID-19 due to age alone. Releasing them would both reduce crowding and free up much needed health care resources.

These people also present almost no risk to our communities. They are elderly. Some use walkers, have pacemakers, compromised immune systems, and have long since aged out of criminal behavior, according to research. They can be safely supervised on parole or community supervision.

The same is true of people already set to be released either this year or next. They are overwhelmingly held in low-security levels. In order to free up space and to protect all people, they should be released now and serve the remainder of their sentence under parole supervision.

All actors in the criminal justice system must do their part to protect incarcerated people. Many county officials across California have already dramatically reduced local jail populations in the name of public health. But as we near the precipice of disaster, it is the governor most of all who has the authority – using his emergency powers – to take swift, urgently needed action to protect people across the state.

Last month, Newsom said, “changing our actions for a short period of time will save the life of one or more people you know. That’s the choice before us.” But the governor has a choice, too, and only he can make it.

He can ignore the burgeoning outbreak in the state’s prisons and leave thousands of vulnerable people to face serious illness or death behind bars, or he can listen to his constituents, and take common sense steps to identify and release all people who can safely return home. If the governor’s goal is to do all he can to stop COVID-19, the choice should be easy.