Our view: For inmates, COVID shouldn't be a death sentence
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD | NOVEMBER 16, 2020
On Sunday, about 40 protesters marched around the Executive Mansion in Raleigh, calling on Gov. Roy Cooper to use his pardon and clemency powers to free prisoners who are at serious risk of contracting COVID-19.
It would be an unconventional solution, but as demonstrator Daniel Bowes said at the protest, “It’s the most flexible and direct path to both protect people from COVID in prison, but also to end mass incarceration.”
Dramatic steps may be necessary. Prison inmates, with few protections available in their closed environments, are an especially vulnerable population.
Back in June, we noted that five inmates as well as a prison nurse at Caswell Correctional Center had died from COVID. In Albemarle Correctional Institution, a medium-custody prison, at least 60 inmates had been infected. Since then, matters have only gotten worse.
Last week, North Carolina authorities reported more than 4,500 cases and 22 deaths within its state prisons. That’s triple the number of cases since July. Nearly 200 new positive cases have been identified so far this month.
And that’s just the state prisons. At Butner Correctional Complex, North Carolina’s only federal prison, 26 prisoners have died; that’s more than at any other federal prison. More than 900 Butner inmates have tested positive.
