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In the name of public health and safety, California plans to release about 8,000 inmates back into society by August 31 thanks to the liberals’ reaction to the coronavirus outbreak.
Those eligible for early release are those prisoners with less than a year left on their sentence as long as they are aren’t violent criminals or sex offenders.
Those obtaining release will supposedly undergo testing within seven days of their release.
In a separate initiative, authorities are granting a 12-month credit on their sentence to virtually all inmates, which total about 110,000 in California, unless they are on death row or serving a life sentence without parole.
“These actions are taken to provide for the health and safety of the incarcerated population and staff,” said state Corrections Department Secretary Ralph Diaz. “We aim to implement these decompression measures in a way that aligns both public health and public safety.”
“To continue to effectively fight this virus, we must create more space in our prisons, both to expand physical distancing to slow COVID‐19′s spread and to ease some of the immense challenges staff face every day,” he separately explained.
As of yesterday, about 5,800 COVID-19 cases have been reported in the prison system, with 31 deaths. San Quentin has emerged as a major hotspot after officials decided to transfer 121 untested inmates from another facility into San Quentin, which turned out to be a disaster. One-third of the San Quentin population of 3,500 prisoners is now reportedly COVID-positive. Four death row prisoners have died from coronavirus complications.
California under far-left Gov. Gavin Newsome has already reduced the number of persons behind bars by 10,000 since the coronavirus pandemic hit.
While this is California, and yes, it’s a complicated issue, reasonable people can still agree or disagree with the logic behind early release program, particularly since prisons provide an automatic quarantine situation.
If the intent is to stop the spread, for example, does it make sense to grant early release to a cohort that may or may not be already infected?
As BizPacReview has previously discussed along these lines, the argument could be made, for instance, that if coronavirus is present at a detention facility, it’d be better for society if the inmates at the facility remain quarantined there. Yet left-wing government officials appear more concerned with the needs of criminals than the needs of law-abiders.
In a blue state that insists on locking down ordinary citizens who just want to go to work and/or resume their normal day-to-day activities, thousands of criminals cut loose could have a major impact on public safety for law-abiding citizens who naturally would like to social distance and “stay safe” from convicts in their midst. This can be especially pertinent when you consider the plea bargaining that goes on in the court system that often can transform a violent crime into a lesser offense.
On the other hand, conservatives have also become aware from the Michael Flynn and Roger Stones cases that prosecutors can sometimes engage in misconduct in the way they charge non-violent criminal defendants.
Plus, without trying to oversimplify or minimize the COVID health risks for those in close quarters, the inmate population is often comprised of a younger contingent, the group that is generally most asymptomatic.
Reports have emerged that some inmates have purposely tried to infect themselves to game the system, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff.
Some police departments around the country have stopped taking into custody suspects unless they are charged with a violent felony.
Inmates over 65 with serious pre-existing conditions, as well as pregnant inmates, may also be eligible for early parole in California.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat, recently used the Bible to justify early prisoner release. And one of Sleepy Joe Biden’s puppet masters, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat, apparently wants to abolish prisons altogether.
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Robert@bizpacreview.com
Robert Jonathan is a staff writer for BizPac Review. He is a longtime writer/editor for news aggregation websites and has also developed content in the legal and financial publishing sectors as well as for online education. He earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Law, “a law school the basketball teams can be proud of.”
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