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

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

President, Wickenden, Washington, Lizza, Obama, Wnyc, News, Barack, Politics

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2020

⏱️ 24 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.”

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0:39.0	Your favorite designers, expertly authenticated.
0:42.5	Yeah, eBay. Things people love.
0:48.7	I'm Dorothy Wickenden on today's Politics and More podcast.
0:52.8	A look at how the coronavirus pandemic is playing out
0:56.7	inside our nation's prison system. WNYC's Kai Wright speaks with Udi Ofer, the Deputy National Political
1:05.1	Director and Director of the Justice Division of the ACLU. And David Remneck speaks with New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy,
1:13.7	who recently signed an order to release certain at-risk inmates from the state's prisons.
1:22.3	I'm joined now by Kai Wright, the host of the program,
1:26.0	the United States of Anxiety from WNYC.
1:29.1	Kai, welcome back. It's great to see you over Zoom at least.
1:31.9	Exactly. This is the closest we can get.
1:34.7	It was just three months ago, which now feels like five years ago, that you joined me for
1:39.2	an episode that we devoted to the issue of mass incarceration and the consequences of that policy.
1:45.2	Now we're watching, as the coronavirus wreaks havoc on every facet of our lives,
1:50.5	including inside our nation's prisons and jails.
	...

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