‘We are still overcrowded’: Prisoners’ advocates seek release of inmates to prevent COVID-19 spread

With much of the U.S. under shelter-at-home orders and told to keep 6 feet away from each other to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, attorneys in California’s decades-old prison overcrowding case are seeking to further reduce the state’s prison population as conditions inside make it literally impossible to practice social distancing.

“We are still overcrowded and with this virus, this is one of the problems we are facing within our prison system is that folks are too close together,” said Romarilyn Ralston, an organizer and policy advocate with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. “It is inevitable that folks will become infected.”