Decarcerating Correctional Facilities during COVID-19 Advancing Health, Equity, and Safety (2020) / Chapter Skim
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In this context, Arnold Ventures and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to form an ad hoc committee to offer guidance on efforts to decarcerate, or reduce the incarcerated population, as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The committee -- comprising experts in corrections, correctional health, economics, epidemiology, law, medicine, public health, public policy, and criminology and sociology -- examined best practices for implementing decarceration and the conditions that support safe and successful reentry of those decarcerated.
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Physical distancing, diagnostic testing, and the ability to quarantine and medically isolate the incarcerated population that remains are all assisted by low prison and jail populations and slack capacity. To achieve population reduction, the committee viewed decarceration as consisting of both diversion from incarceration prior to admission and reduction of the incarcerated population through accelerated release from jails, prisons, and detention centers.
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In light of racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 infection rates as well as socioeconomic vulnerabilities emerging as the pandemic evolves, any efforts to decarcerate will need to consider not only those individuals released from correctional facilities but also the families and home communities to which they return. Appropriate planning for reentry and the provision of supports, especially during the first few weeks following release, can help mitigate public health and public safety risks and also the racial inequities that exist and are widening.
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Guiding Principles for Decarceration Informed by research and epidemiological data, the committee outlined the following principles to be considered in developing strategies for depopulating correctional facilities: • Maximization of net benefits, • Equal regard and fairness with view to mitigation of health and racial inequities, and • Transparency to support evidence-based decision making. Together, the principles encourage decision makers releasing incarcerated individuals to do so through a lens of racial equity, meaning that all people have the opportunity to be released safely back to their families and communities.
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Recommendation 2: Correctional officials in conjunction with public health authorities should take steps to assess the optimal population level of their facilities to adhere to public health guidelines during the pandemic, considering factors such as overcrowding, the physical de sign and conditions of their facilities, population turnover, health care capacity, and the health of the incarcerated population. Recommendation 3: To the extent that the current population level in a facility is higher than the optimal population level for adhering to public health guidelines, correctional officials should identify candidates for release from prison and jail in a fair and equitable manner and engage other officials outside the correctional system as necessary to expedite decarceration to the optimal level.
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The development of these plans should include efforts to identify systemic barriers to accessing public benefits and maintaining continuity of benefits and to support enrollment in benefits for individuals returning from incarceration across each of these domains. Public officials should also employ measures to avoid creating additional COVID-19–related health risks to the families and communities to which incarcerated individuals are returning, including offering testing prior to release, a place to quarantine in the community, and examination of parole and probation policies and procedures.
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Recommendation 6: Correctional officials in coordination with local public health authorities should implement measures to avoid creating additional COVID-19–related health risks for families and communi ties. These measures should include providing COVID-19 testing prior to release and facilitating quarantining as necessary.
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Preparedness planning involves public health experts and correctional officials and the creation of plans for safely diverting and releasing people from custody during a public health crisis. The goal of this work would be to weigh medical criteria and public health considerations against criminal justice purposes to develop community standards for safely diverting and releasing people from custody during public health emergencies and improve the preparedness of correctional systems.
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by age, gender, and race/ethnicity via a public-facing website or dashboard. Recommendation 10: State and federal research infrastructures should invest in the monitoring and evaluation of the changes in operations and targeted COVID-19 release mechanisms in correctional facilities to document the impact of such efforts on correctional health, public safety, public health, and racial equity.
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In the perspective of this report, public safety encompasses good public health. Institutions for incarceration have been the sites of numerous outbreaks of infection and in this sense have posed a threat to public safety.
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