California, Texas Plan Wide Release of Inmates as Virus Spreads
California to Release Up to 3,500 Inmates in Response to Virus
(Bloomberg) -- California and Texas are planning cuts to their jail populations with early releases to limit the spread of the coronavirus in the states’ overcrowded prison systems.
California plans to grant early parole to as many as 3,500 inmates convicted of non-violent crimes while a federal judge in Houston on Tuesday ordered Harris County officials to start processing and releasing about 250 non-violent pre-trial detainees per day.
“Move as quickly as possible, we face grave danger here,” U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal said during a teleconference hearing Tuesday. She said her priority is protecting inmates arrested for non-violent crimes who “are solely there because they can’t afford to get out.”
Jailers across the country are acting to release prisoners because the virus can spread quickly in facilities that confine lots of people -- inmates, guards and other staff. Many lockups also have poor hygiene and lack access to good health care.
California has been under a court order since 2009 to limit its prison crowding to 137.5% of design capacity. An inmate rights group asked the court last week, in light of the coronavirus pandemic, to further reduce the number “to a level that will permit social distancing and protect the medically vulnerable.”
Cutting Prison Population
According to the California Department of Corrections, 117,328 people were locked up in institutions or camps -- at 130.9% capacity.
Prison officials said in a court filing Tuesday that early paroles and other measures would cut the prison population by as many as 6,500 and would allow for increased physical distancing and the quarantining of inmates who have tested positive for the virus or are suspected of having it.
As of Monday, four inmates and 22 employees at the state’s 35 prisons had tested positive for the virus, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation website.
Lawyers for California told the court in the filing that any change in the prison cap is unnecessary given the steps that the state is already taking.
The early parole plan would lead to the release of “up to approximately” 3,500 men and women who are within 60 days of release.
In addition, they said the corrections department has “temporarily suspended all intakes from county jails,” meaning that people sentenced to prison in state court will stay put in county jails rather than be transferred, as usual, to state prisons. The Corrections Department said the change will cut the prison population by 3,000 within 30 days.
The department didn’t say where the inmates with Covid-19 are housed. But the state’s lawyers said that 535 inmates at California State Prison in Los Angeles County and the California Institution for Men, which is in Chino, had been in contact with the four infected inmates and have been quarantined in their housing units.
In Texas, prisoners’ advocates had asked Rosenthal to order the immediate release of as many as 4,000 county prisoners, saying the coronavirus pandemic might soon sweep through the nation’s fourth-largest jail system “like wildfire.”
Texas’s attorney general had opposed that request as a threat to public safety and violation of Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s March 29 executive order outlawing the release of any prisoners convicted or suspected of violent crimes.
“No one has any intention of violating the governor’s order by ordering a blanket release of individuals arrested for violent offenses or who have prior convictions for violent offenses,” Rosenthal told lawyers on the conference call. “No one has any intention to cross that line.”
Harris County’s Sheriff’s Office estimated 1,000 to 1,200 prisoners might qualify for release, because they’re jailed for non-violent crimes. Prior violent histories and other disqualifying factors will likely reduce the number.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the county’s top elected politician, is expected to order the prompt release of some non-violent offenders from county jails, although her order was still circulating in draft form Tuesday.
Rosenthal said she expects Hidalgo’s order to be signed by Wednesday, and that she hopes it will mirror many of the vetting criteria she’s identified, such as excluding repeat offenders and those detained for DWI or residential burglary.
Over the weekend, Harris County revealed one prisoner has tested positive for Covid-19 while 30 more are awaiting test results after exhibiting symptoms. Six sheriff’s deputies are also infected. The Harris County jail system had about 9,000 inmates as of March 2.
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