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Overcrowded Prisons Should Get Priority Vaccine Distribution
It might not be popular, but the alternative might be worse.
Unsurprisingly, a California Sheriff is refusing to release 1,800 inmates after a judge’s order, calling the incarcerated individuals a “serious threat” to the community. Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said he will not release these prisoners into the community despite a court order to do so.
The depopulation order was intended to slow the spread of COVID-19 within the confines of the prison.
“I have no intention of doing that, of releasing those individuals back into the community. I think they pose a serious threat,” Barnes told “Fox & Friends”.
Orange County Civil Court Judge Peter Wilson made this decision and ordered Sheriff Barnes to release the 1,800 inmates in response to a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union. The lawsuit argued that the prison was overcrowded and it was filed in an effort to “protect medically vulnerable people and people with disabilities detained at the Orange County Jail.”
The ACLU’s Jacob Reisberg said, “Public safety does not just mean crime,” KABC reported. “Public safety also means, is there a hospital bed open if you get sick? And if there’s a massive outbreak in the jail, which this depopulation order is trying to avoid, there will…