With New Yorkers at home maintaining social distancing, NYC prisoners do not get the same courtesy. The prisoners live in shared spaces; they sleep in dorms and share bathrooms and sinks and other facilities. Social distancing in prison is impossible. Life in prison in the age of the Coronavirus is a public health disaster in the making.
The only effective strategy is to reduce the jail population. Rikers Island has 4,363 prisoners, which is the lowest number since World War 2. There is a need to reduce the population further by sending home 1,000 prisoners to prevent a looming health disaster. The prison population is determined by the three factors of admissions, length of stay, and releases. The first step is to limit admissions to the prison during the Covid-19 pandemic. Rikers cannot admit more prisoners unless they have been tested for Coronavirus. The prison can suspend admission citing health reasons as it does not have enough room and facilities to support more prisoners during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The first step in preventing a health crisis is by releasing most vulnerable individuals. The elderly and sick prisoners incarcerated for parole violations should be released. Rikers has elderly prisoners with a high risk of contracting Covid-19. Elderly and chronically individuals are at a higher risk. Pregnant women are also at a higher risk. These individuals will be given a priority as long as they do not pose a risk to public safety. There are elderly and at-risk prisoners across all the clusters. A majority of the remaining prisoners at Rikers are in prison for violent crimes. 44% of them are remanded while 15% are on hold and have another warrant. 13% of the prisoners are guilty of non-violent felonies. The prison administrators must identify the most vulnerable individuals across all clusters, both male and female, and find ways to protect these people. Individuals who have served longer terms, more than 50% of the time, depending on the crime, can be released on parole. On the other hand, vulnerable prisoners who are beginning their terms can be put in isolation to avoid putting them at risk of Covid-19. Other vulnerable prisoners include women with dependent children. Individuals who qualify for compassionate early release schemes must be carefully selected to avoid compromising public safety.
11% of the 4,363 prisoners, making up 478 prisoners are at Rikers for technical violations of parole. Technical parole violations contribute significantly to the prison population, not only in Rikers but across the US ( Bertram & Widra, 2020) . Prisoners at Rikers for parole violations often get an average of 60 days to 120 days in prison until the state officials determine their cases.
Technical violations of parole include behaviors such as staying out past curfew, missing an appointment with the parole officer, or failure to notify the parole officers about their activities. Individuals arrested for technical violations of parole often do not pose a danger to the community, but some of them can be dangerous (Tauri, 2019). Rikers can release about 400 inmates on parole violations after analyzing each case to ensure that they were not arrested for criminal behavior, but for simple violation of parole rules.
Another 5% of the Rikers population is guilty of misdemeanors. In New York, a misdemeanor is a lesser crime, such as prostitution, petty theft, trespassing, and disorderly conduct. Individuals who get jail time for misdemeanors are those who commit a class A misdemeanor such as assault, theft, and drug possession. The misdemeanor cases often attract a jail term of 12 months. These cases are not severe, and they rarely pose a severe danger to society. Rikers should aim to release 200 prisoners held for misdemeanors. 73% of prisoners at Rikers for misdemeanors have another warrant or hold on them. This will be a challenge to the prison administrators as the other warrants block them from releasing the prisoners. The prison administrators must work with other states that issued the warrants to clear the prisoners facing misdemeanor charges. They can enter into a plea with the prosecuting attorneys for the state they issued the warrant. No state would want to pursue misdemeanor cases and arrest them during the Covid-19 pandemic as long as they do not pose any danger to the community. The prison administration must be willing to help individuals with misdemeanor cases to get their cases dismissed or deferred to a later date.
Aside from releasing the prisoners, New York should change its policy to prioritize alternatives to detention. People who commit misdemeanors and those in prison for technical violations of parole do not have to be given the same punishment as violent offenders. Henneguelle et al. (2016) explore the positive effect of electronic monitoring in reducing recidivism. An alternative to prison sentences includes house arrest or town arrest under electronic monitoring. While house arrests come with a limitation, it also gives the offenders an incentive for cooperation (Petersilia, 2014). Inmates who have served more than half of their time and have demonstrated growth over their time of incarceration should be allowed to serve the rest of the sentence under house arrest or a halfway house that is not as crowded as a prison.
Home confinement is an alternative to prison time. Individuals can be released to home confinement if they are qualified. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is responsible for settling the laws for home confinement, and it has extended the considerations for home confinement in the wake of the Covid-19 Pandemic (Tenorio-Kutzkey et al., 2020). According to BOP, the totality of the circumstances for each prisoner must be considered as well as a non-exhaustive list of discretionary factors. Some of the discretionary factors include the age and vulnerability of the inmate to the Covid-19 pandemic, the inmate’s conduct, and the inmate’s score on Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Needs (PATTERN) (Tenorio-Kutzkey et al., 2020). Inmates who have demonstrated a desire to get back to society with a verified re-entry plan as well as the inmate’s conviction and belief that they no longer pose a danger to the community will also be verified. While inmates charged with violent and non-violent felonies at Rikers pose a serious danger to the community, some of these inmates have shown remorse and are working towards being better citizens. A small percentage of the inmates charged with violent and non-violent felonies will be given a chance to finish their sentences through home confinement.
A position paper by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) gave an outline of some of the successful measures used across the world to reduce the prison population during the Covid-19 pandemic. The first measure is to curb the inflow of incoming prisoners as they pose a serious risk to the inmates. However, an effective strategy for reducing the prison population is by working with judges and magistrates to seek alternatives to pre-trial detention and suspension of certain sentences that only add to the prison population ( Petersilia, 2014) . Minor crimes that are of non-violent and non-sexual nature should no longer attract a jail term. Finland came up with a policy of postponing the enforcement for sentences for minor crimes attracting a jail term of up to six months until later when the Covid-19 pandemic is under control.
In conclusion, Covid-19 has forced nations to heed to the calls of reducing the prison population. Rikers Island is a notorious prison known for its abuse of prisoners’ rights. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, the Rikers population has reduced drastically, but the population is still high enough to compromise the health of the inmates. The administration must release vulnerable individuals, including the elderly, pregnant women, women with dependent children, as they are at a higher risk. Rikers must be willing to take advantage of home confinement and halfway housing as an alternative to a jail term. Inmates jailed for misdemeanors, technical violations of parole, and non-violent crimes, which pose no danger to the community, should be released too.
References
Bertram, W., & Widra, E. (2020, April 24). Hundreds are still jailed for technical parole violations in NYC, which means decarceration is happening far too slowly. Prison Policy Initiative. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/04/24/nyc-technical/
Henneguelle, A., Monnery, B., & Kensey, A. (2016). Better at home than in prison? The effects of electronic monitoring on recidivism in France. The Journal of Law and Economics , 59 (3), 629-667.
Petersilia, J. (2014). California prison downsizing and its impact on local criminal justice systems. Harv. L. & Pol'y Rev. , 8 , 327.
Tenorio-Kutzkey, L., Hillebrecht, J., Park,J., & Chan, W. (2020, Apr. 16). DOJ expands home confinement options as coronavirus spreads in prisons. DLA Piper. https://www.dlapiper.com/en/us/insights/publications/2020/04/doj-expands-home- confinement-options-as-coronavirus-spreads-in-prisons/
Tauri, J. M. (2019). Reducing Our Prison Population: Past Failures and New Approaches. Decolonization of Criminology and Justice , 1 (1), 106-116 .
