COVID DETENTION

Across the country from New York's, Rikers Island to Ohio's Marion Correctional Institution, along with other correctional detention centers and prisons across the country, the COVID virus is highlighting the enormous impact this virus can have that far outweigh the common flu. Correctional Detention Centers are rapidly becoming the new hot spots and breeding grounds for the coronavirus. With more than 2k inmates infected at the Marion facility, many jurisdictions are making determinations about their prison population and how to effectively manage the public’s safety with the need to be responsible during this Public Health Crisis. The question of who should be released early to minimize the infection rate to the sanitation of the facility to maintaining social distancing. Many of these decisions fall on the elected constable responsible for the detention centers, jails, and prisons. Wardens, judges, district attorneys, and sheriffs. Sheriffs, like my friend and recipient of the 2019 BPT Trailblazers Award, and first term, first African-American Sheriff in Durham County’s 140 history, I’m proud to be able to call him friend, and that’s Sheriff Clarence Birkhead.