500 signatures reached
To: Governors
Protect people in prisons, jails, and immigrant detention centers from COVID-19!
Governors must take immediate COVID-19 action at prisons, jails, and immigrant detention centers: Release everyone who isn’t a risk to public safety, and reduce admissions!
Why is this important?
On March 30, at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, 58-year-old Juan Mosquero died in isolation after exhibiting serious COVID-19-related symptoms.
Across the country families are under extreme stress over the fate of incarcerated loved ones, including Cassandra in Virginia, who says, “My husband is currently incarcerated here in a Virginia prison. He currently has health concerns that worry me. Making him subcetable and at higher risk of the Corona virus [sic].”
We are in a crisis on multiple fronts right now, and one such crisis at a breaking point with COVID-19 is our mass incarceration rate — the highest in the world — and crowded detention facilities in which we have totally inadequate health protections. This is no small crisis. There are 2.3 million people behind bars. On any given day, 600,000 people are held pretrial in jails mostly because they don’t have enough money to be home with their families. Moreover, 38,000 people are currently being held in ICE detention centers.
The spread of COVID-19 is a national emergency that threatens potentially millions of lives. While everyone is at risk, we have a moral obligation to ensure that our most vulnerable—the elderly, the sick, those without medical care, and those unable to protect themselves from the virus—get the help that they need.
Tell your governor to take action now!