And now the Poverty organization Alabama Arise is out with some recommendations if the DOC does decide to release some of the almost 28,000 prisoners. Their advice:
- The DOC should expand medical furlough for prisoners. Jails also should release nonviolent offenders. Medical furlough allows prisoners with medical conditions, including diseases that result from aging, to be released to treat those diseases.
- Officials should allow high-risk incarcerated seniors to go home to the greatest extent reasonable under the law. That would reduce the danger of infection and make a pandemic more manageable in prisons. People over age 60 and people with some ailments correlated with aging, like cardiovascular disease, are at greater risk of serious illness if infected.
- Local jails should keep their cells as empty as possible. All incarcerated people with no history of violence and no charges pending for violent crimes should be released without requiring money bail. And people arrested for nonviolent crimes should be released on their own recognizance or with reasonable monitoring conditions. Slowing the coronavirus outbreak is more important than keeping people who aren’t accused of violent crimes locked up. Circuit Judge Ben Fuller’s order last week for jails in Autauga, Chilton and Elmore counties to release anyone with a bond of $5,000 or less was a good step in that direction.
The Corrections people won't say where, but one employee has tested positive for the virus.
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