Coronavirus

Elected officials need to stop making excuses for not getting unhoused people into hotel rooms.

Medical ethics experts have criticized the state’s prison officials and say masks to protect against COVID-19 should be distributed ‘with no strings attached.’

Governor John Bel Edwards has yet to commute Gloria Williams’s sentence despite a parole board’s unanimous recommendation that she be freed. Now she is in critical condition at a Baton Rouge hospital.

One prisoner says a man collapsed while waiting for a temperature check and was sprayed down with disinfectant as he lay on the floor. BOP denied it.

The Bureau of Prisons could send those without homes to alternative halfway houses far from D.C. or back to prison at the end of the month.

‘I would go to the hospital very often and they wouldn’t do anything for me.’

As millions file for unemployment, tenants are banding together to support their neighbors who can’t pay the rent.

As the coronavirus crisis continues to expand, it is clear that America needs a robust assistance program for the most vulnerable, such as the elderly and physically disabled, to ensure they have what they need to survive. The health, safety, and stability of all communities depend on it.

The state’s law enforcement agencies failed to implement a 2018 data-sharing law. Now officials are struggling to identify high-risk people to release from county jails.

The city has created the structural conditions that have engendered disproportionately high rates of infection and death among its Black and Latinx residents.

The current coronavirus crisis underscores our urgent need to look hard at our pretrial justice system. Eliminating money bail is a necessary first step.

‘This is getting worse,’ one woman said. ‘People just want to sleep or fight. They play with our emotions constantly. This place is scary.’

Towns like Homer, Louisiana, have huge prisons, a tiny populace, and few public health resources—a potentially lethal combination as COVID-19 spreads.

Warehouse workers say time pressure leaves them unable to properly wash their hands, and have reported an increase in mandatory overtime, which creates crowded conditions.

People behind bars are too often forgotten and treated as expendable. We cannot afford to forget them. Our shared survival and shared humanity demand action.

‘It seems like Black people are still being criminalized and are not free,’ one organizer said.

Criminal justice advocates have called Camp J at the Louisiana State Penitentiary ‘a dungeon.’ Now it’s housing prisoners who have been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Local budget cuts enacted a decade ago left states and cities dangerously unprepared for COVID-19. We shouldn’t make those same mistakes again.

Peter Lucas was jailed overnight at a time when prosecutors across the country are actively working to reduce the number of people behind bars to stem the spread of COVID-19.

Approximately 100 men will be transported to Draper Correctional Facility, which has long been known for its nightmarish conditions.

A man describes his ordeal in medical isolation while awaiting trial.

FCI Ray Brook was slow to respond to the spread of coronavirus among correctional officers. Now the outbreak has reached prisoners.

Governor Mike DeWine, critics say, ‘is risking turning low-level prison sentences into death sentences.’

With programming paused and prison jobs reduced, people inside will not be able to earn good-time credits and are cut off from a means of supporting themselves.

Despite distancing warnings, more than 80 state and federal agents fanned out in an anti-drug operation that, The Appeal has learned, was based on a series of retail-level drug sales.

Neither the coronavirus nor anything else is a ‘great equalizer’ because we aren’t, actually, all in this together.

The Pennsylvania Innocence Project was seeking the exoneration of Rudolph Sutton when he died on April 8 from complications related to COVID-19.

His attorney says the Suffolk County DA’s office tried to send “an innocent man to his death.”

By letting people out now, we can avoid overwhelming our healthcare system with sick prisoners later.

For many people across the U.S. who need methadone treatment, sheltering in place during the coronavirus outbreak is impossible.

Taking emergency measures to protect homeless people from the pandemic is simply common sense.

Advocates say the “progressive” city has left them to die.

The families and partners of those incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Complex at Oakdale are sharing information and support as COVID-19 hits the prison.

Recent successes in stemming the opioid crisis could be reversed if public health budgets are cut or the crisis is seen as secondary to the pandemic.

Voters want the government to take common sense measures that meet the scale of the crisis and preserve the economy so that when the coronavirus is contained, economic life can resume as rapidly as possible. It’s time for lawmakers in Washington, D.C. to listen.

New polling finds strong bipartisan support for recurring government payments to Americans, rather than a one-time payment.

Tom Wolf said Friday he will use his reprieve power, a form of clemency, to reduce the state prison population.

A Brooklyn teacher tried three times to get treatment for the coronavirus. Now she’s fighting for her life.

The city’s DA’s office and its public defender association urged judges to adopt video meetings to speed the release of incarcerated people. But emails obtained by The Appeal show that judges took a much more limited approach to decarceration.

‘We are still packed in like sardines,’ writes Fate Winslow, who’s serving a life sentence. ‘The prison doesn’t supply anything for us.’