NC’s Prison Population Forgotten in Fight Against COVID-19, Advocates Say
BY SARAH OVASKA | NOVEMBER 16, 2020 12:16 PM
A coalition of criminal justice groups are holding a 58-day vigil to pressure Gov. Roy Cooper to do more to protect the 30,000 North Carolinians in prison from COVID-19.
If Black lives truly do matter to Gov. Roy Cooper, he should use his clemency and pardon powers to help imprisoned North Carolinians, criminal justice advocates said Sunday.
More than 30,000 people incarcerated in the state’s prisons, 60% of them Black or Latino residents, haven’t been adequately protected by Cooper’s administration, according to Decarcerate Now NC, a coalition of several criminal and racial justice organizations that held vigil Sunday outside Cooper’s home at the Executive Mansion. The NC Vigil for Racial Justice and Freedom has been stationed outside Cooper’s official residence since Election Day, when North Carolina voters hired the Democratic politician for another four-year term.
They plan on staying for a total of 58 days, to bring attention to what they say is dangerous and immoral inaction on Cooper’s part.
“Thousands of lives, thousands, are hanging in the balance, because the state refuses to acknowledge that COVID-19 has become a death sentence within the prison population,” said the Rev. T. Anthony Spearman, the head of the state’s NAACP chapter. “The state’s response suggests that the lives of those in prison do not even matter.”
Read more at: https://cardinalpine.com/story/clemency/
