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EDITORIAL: Rethink jail policy during, and after, coronavirus pandemic

Orange County Register - 4/18/2020

Apr. 17--If there's a silver lining to the coronavirus outbreak, it's that Americans are now more willing to rethink the way their government has provided services. For instance, we've seen how regulations have impeded the development of drugs and the ability of health-care workers to cross state lines, and that public schools are behind the curve at distance learning.

We've also learned that our current system of incarceration, at least for low-level offenders, is ill-prepared to deal with an emergency situation. We've long known that the system is lacking in creativity, overly expensive and remarkably ineffective at reducing recidivism. There's nothing like a crisis to expose the flaws in public institutions.

COVID-19 has spread rapidly in these institutional settings because of close confinement and oftentimes unsanitary conditions. In response, some localities have looked at ways to protect the health of inmates and jail personnel. In one example, Los Angeles County has released approximately 10 percent of its inmates -- mainly, those who are serving sentences of less than 30 days for non-violent offenses.

Law-enforcement officials have made it clear such policies would not endanger the public. We agree, but it also raises an obvious point. If releasing these low-risk offenders doesn't pose problems now, then it wouldn't have posed a problem to release them before the crisis. Surely, there are better ways to deal with minor scofflaws than locking them up in jail.

For starters, many observers have called for reforming our states' misdemeanor system. It's tough to accomplish for reasons that have little to do with public safety. That's because "misdemeanors are critical to the U.S. criminal justice system, becoming a profit-making center with its court fees and fines," explained Annika Olson in The Hill.

Misdemeanors comprise 80 percent of criminal cases, she notes.

So, why not look at long-term policies that reduce the number of people who are incarcerated for picayune offenses and embrace models that offer alternatives to jail time?

Those specific ideas are the subject for another day, but COVID-19 once again reminds us of the need to rethink the status quo.

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