News & Commentary

COVID-19 is ravaging many parts of the United States, but nowhere more than in Black communities. Early data from the Midwest and the South reveal that Black people are contracting and dying from the virus at far higher rates than whites.

Mario Rodas, Sr. first found out there was a deadly virus spreading through the country while he was watching television at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Massachusetts. In early March, Rodas had been pulled over and arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

In a desperate effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, state and local officials are following the advice of public health experts to impose severe restrictions on American life, such as social distancing and shelter-at-home orders.

Being pregnant in prison is a humiliating, dehumanizing, and dangerous experience in the best of circumstances. Pregnant incarcerated people have to fear loss of reproductive choices, shackling, and solitary confinement, as well as the inevitable separation from their newborns.

A prison sentence should not become a death sentence. But our prisons are ill-equipped to handle the likely outbreak of COVID-19.

To ensure elections proceed and eligible Americans can vote, any federal legislative package addressing the impact of COVID-19 on our elections must include an immediate, substantial infusion of federal funding and federal requirements for no-excuse mail-in absentee voting and early in-person voting