DALLAS (KRLD) - A coalition of civil rights leaders have sent nearly 500 letters to criminal justice officials, urging them to take public health experts' advice and release individuals who are at high risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19 from county jails.
Nick Hudson with the ACLU of Texas says that the group should include the medically vulnerable, those accused of minor crimes and people being held because they can't afford to post bail.
"Social distancing isn't possible in jail. People are housed in jails in close proximity. They use communal spaces. They often don't have access to the same facilities for hand washing that we have."
Hudson says jails are not sanitary, to begin with, and "having a bunch of people in an environment where there's a dangerous virus means those people are at risk and people who work there are also at risk."
