The Pandemic Is Wreaking Havoc in America’s Prisons and Jails

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2020

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

Three months ago, Kai Wright, the host of WNYC’s the United States of Anxiety, joined David Remnick for a special episode about the effects of mass incarceration and the movement to end it. Now, as the coronavirus pandemic puts inmates in acute and disproportionate danger, that effort may be gaining new traction. Wright and Remnick reconvene to examine the COVID-19 crisis in prison and its political effects. David Remnick also speaks with Phil Murphy, the governor of New Jersey, who has signed an executive order to release certain at-risk inmates from states prisons—the sort of measure that would once have been deeply unpopular and risky. “I haven’t really spent any time on the politics,” Governor Murphy says. “In all the steps we’ve taken, we’re trying to make the call as best we can, based on the facts, based on the data, based on the science.” And Kai Wright interviews Udi Ofer, the head of the A.C.L.U.’s Justice Division, who notes that “the communities that the C.D.C. has told us are most vulnerable to COVID-19 are exactly the communities that are housed in our nation’s jails and prisons,” including a disproportionately older population among inmates. Given the lack of social distancing and, in many cases, substandard hygienic conditions, Ofer says that reducing the inmate population “literally is a life-and-death situation.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.0	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. I'm joined now by Kai Wright, the host of the program, The United States of Anxiety from WNYC.
0:19.6	Kai, welcome back. It's great to see you over Zoom at least.
0:22.5	Exactly.
0:23.1	This is the closest we can get.
0:25.3	It was just three months ago, which now feels like five years ago,
0:28.8	that you joined me for an episode that we devoted to the issue of mass incarceration
0:33.1	and the consequences of that policy.
0:35.8	Now we're watching, as the coronavirus wreaks havoc on every
0:39.9	facet of our lives, including inside our nation's prisons and jails. So, Kai, what does it mean for
0:45.6	people who are behind bars still and people working in prisons as well? It means really quite acute
0:51.6	danger. Honestly, I saw a list this morning. There was something about like 150 people that have died that at least have been documented so far inside jails and prisons. The number is certainly growing. It's impossible to social distance in those environments.
1:08.3	Now, some authorities and in some areas around the country, have sent some people home
1:13.6	or sent people out of prison to achieve just what you're describing, some more social distance
1:18.2	there, maybe not people who were convicted of the most violent crimes. Is that not a step forward?
1:24.2	Has it not achieved anything? Well, it has, but keep in mind, I mean, so there are about
1:29.3	2.3 million people incarcerated in the United States. That's a huge spectrum of folks,
1:34.6	ranging from people who are waiting for trial, who can't make bail, who, you know,
1:39.1	are there on minor drug charges, on up through violent offenders, right? When you think about that number, the most recent number I've seen of who's been released
1:48.4	comes from the UCLA Law School, who's been tracking this, and they calculate there's about
1:53.4	38,000 people who've been released from the system.
1:56.2	So out of that 2.3 million, that's less than 2%.
	...

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