Amid COVID-19, Florida confronts age-old question: Do the old and sick need to be locked up?
On the day the Florida Legislature voted on the budget, Florida had 390 positive cases of COVID-19 and eight deaths statewide.
Rep. Dianne Hart, D-Tampa, a leader on prison issues, made a point before the vote to ask what was being done to address a potential outbreak of the virus in the state prison system. Inmates can’t even have hand sanitizer, she said, and lawmakers can no longer visit to keep tabs on what is happening inside.
“We know that one outbreak in our prison system is going to devastate the inmates we have,” she said. “We have thousands of people over 60 housed in our facilities.”
She was ignored.
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article242199026.html#storylink=cpy
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Letter to SAMANTHA J. GROSS Miami Herald on 4/25/2020
Hello:
Every time inmates are released for compassionate reasons, those who have formerly committed sex crimes are excepted from our compassion.
In fact, though, those criminals who have committed sex crimes are statistically the least likely to reoffend! (As they age, their likelihood of reoffense all but disappears.) This is not widely known to the public, but has consistently been shown to be true in numerous, state, university and federal studies done of recidivism.
When we refuse to extend compassion to those prisoners who have the best chance at reform, we turn our backs on science, reason, justice and mercy. Instead, we succumb to hate and fear.
Keeping former sex offenders locked up during this global pandemic is akin to a genocide!
Good, brief letter. I hope it makes it to print.
Thank you, JJJJ, for writing this letter.
A big deal has been made about the people released from the New York City jail who have already been re-arrested. What the media is NOT saying, but the mayor of New York is saying, is that the MAJORITY of those released are NOT committing new crimes. We are becoming a country where for every one person who re-offends, many law-abiding citizens are being punished for something they did not do.