On any given day, nearly 20,000 people are incarcerated in county jails across Illinois. Inside the state’s 92 jails, people are packed tight into what are often unsanitary conditions where nutritious food is sparse. These conditions make jails hot beds for the spread of contagious diseases. As COVID-19 continues to spread in communities, it is only a matter of time before the virus enters county jails in Illinois through the staff or admission of contagious people. It is impossible for incarcerated people to practice social distancing, which means that the rate of infection in jails is much higher than in the communities that surround them. The impact of an outbreak in a jail will not be limited to those people who are detained. Coronavirus symptoms are frequently life-threatening and thus beyond the capacities of a jail infirmary. That means it will be impossible to keep sick people within the jails. Rather, they will need to be sent to outside hospitals, which can easily overwhelm a local health system—especially if many people within a jail contract coronavirus at the same time.

Jails big and small, across our state, have the responsibility to decarcerate in the name of public health. Last week, the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice worked with Gamaliel of Illinois, Illinois Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC-IL), John Howard Association of Illinois, Liberation Library, Loevy & Loevy, Restore Justice Illinois, Shriver Center on Poverty Law, Students for Sensible Drug Policy – Illinois, Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois, and Uptown People’s Law Center to send letters to county officials across Illinois demanding they take steps to decarcerate their jails in the name of public health. The letters called on Chief Judges, State’s Attorneys, and Sheriffs to take steps to reduce the number of people in county jails while calling Mayors and Police Chiefs to take steps to reduce the number of people coming in contact with the criminal legal system through arrests. You can read our recommendations here.

A movement to decarcerate jails and prisons in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is growing across Illinois. These letters follow and build on decarceration efforts previously launched by Network member organizations Black Lives Matter: BloNo, Bloomington-Normal Democratic Socialists of America, the Champaign County Bailout Coalition, Faith Coalition for the Common Good, and Chicago Community Bond Fund, demanding action in McLean, Champaign, Sangamon, and Cook counties. 

Decarceration is a public health imperative. Maintaining incarceration in county jails puts not only the lives of people inside at risk, but threatens the health of entire communities. This unprecedented crisis calls for unprecedented actions. The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice is committed to fighting for the health and freedom of all Illinoisians.