Bruce Western: California must reduce jail and prison populations to fight COVID-19 — and racism
Bruce Western, Professor of Sociology, Director of the Justice Lab, and Chair of the Sociology Department published an article in the Sacramento Bee.
A California Court of Appeals recently ordered the San Quentin State Prison to halve its inmate population by transferring or releasing people like the petitioner in the case, Ivan Von Staich — a 64-year-old incarcerated man with respiratory problems who tested positive for COVID-19 after sharing a cell so small that he could touch the walls with his hands.
The court cited the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment in concluding that these conditions were “morally indefensible and constitutionally untenable.”
But there’s not just a legal and moral basis for accelerating efforts to reduce incarceration — an expert panel we co-chaired for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine concluded that there is also a scientific and data-driven case for significantly shrinking jail and prison populations across the board in the midst of a global pandemic.