Rikers Island is being closely examined as the number of inmates and employees who’ve contracted the virus has grown quickly and is certain to continue exponentially. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio released more than 200 inmates on Friday, March 27, with an additional 175 to be released the following night. The released inmates were given cellphones to maintain communication with officials and hotel rooms to be monitored for the virus.
Since this is a matter of life and death, It’s clear at this point that criminal justice officials are doing what they should have been doing — and could have been doing — all along, which was give second chances to certain inmates and provide opportunities for reform.
The Department of Justice, on the other hand, is not at all interested in what the reform advocates have to say and are instead pushing for violations of constitutional rights in light of COVID-19. The DOJ wants to keep offenders in jail for longer periods of time to await court dates and be granted suspensions on the statute of limitations that would extend beyond a year after the COVID-19 crisis is over.
That means a person could be arrested for failing to maintain their car insurance and stay in jail for more than a year after COVID-19 settles. Habeas corpus would cease to exist. Immigrants who test positive for the disease would be prohibited from seeking asylum. While most of the world is banding together to figure out ways to combat the pandemic, the DOJ is interested in expanding its power and reach and carving out exceptions in the U.S. Constitution.
Officials at the Bureau of Prisons feel their hands are tied, noting that there’s no federal law that allows for the reduction of an inmate’s sentence absent a judicial order. However, they have put a plan in place to limit social visits and inmate transfers, while also screening new prisoners for the disease.
The federal government’s failure to act has been the root cause of this pandemic, and the individual states are using all of their power to effectively respond to the crisis within their constitutional powers to do so. Hopefully, the federal government’s response is not the enactment of any laws that limit the state’s police power at this time because it seems as though the state governments are the only ones who are responding to this crisis the best way possible given the circumstances.
This pandemic has taught us a lot about what the government claims it could and could not do, and stuffing the prison system with individuals who could otherwise be productive members of society — or at least pose no real threat or risk to society — is one of them.
