Why COVID-19 Means Inmates with Minor Offenses Should Be Freed
May 20, 2020. Complex. Many convicts, especially Black people, are in jail because of non-violent crimes like marijuana possession; they are serving time for a substance that was once a crime, and is now considered in many states an essential industry. And yet they are forced to stay in prisons and contract this deadly virus. Patrisse unpacks this aspect of the unethical prison state and shows how for many people who are only serving short two-year sentences are forced to serve death sentences, trapped by COVID-19.