Now more than ever it is undeniable that incarceration is a public health problem. Over 2 million people are in cages today in the United States. Most of them do not have access to adequate healthcare and are incredibly vulnerable to this epidemic.  

In this moment, we must get our people out of cages and ensure they have what they need to be healthy and free.

Reduce the number of people who are incarcerated to reduce the spread and impact of COVID-19: 

• Use pardon power to commute the sentences of anyone who has a heightened vulnerability to COVID-19, including the elderly, pregnant women, people with illnesses, and people with otherwise compromised immune systems.
• Commute the sentences of people aged 50 and older who have served at least 10 years in custody. 
• Commute the sentences of people with determinate or indeterminate sentences who have served at least half of their sentence and/or who have a maximum expiration/conditional release date within the next two years, regardless of medical history. 
• Expedite review of medical parole applications and urge the parole board to grant every eligible application.
• Halt all new sentences. Halt all new arrests for minor offenses (traffic fines, etc.)
• Release all people held on probation and probation technical violations.
• Suspend all immigration arrests, including at-large arrests and mass workplace raids. 
• Release all detained individuals (in jails and detention centers) on their own recognizance, minimizing the use of bond, and prioritizing the release of high-risk populations, including but not limited to individuals who are pregnant, disabled, elderly, or living with chronic illness.

Guarantee safe conditions and ensure that transparent plans are in place to address crisis:

• Create and publically share transparent COVID-19 plans for every facility, including public updates about infection rates and spread including disclosing how many COVID-19 tests and respirators have been allocated to correction agencies. 
• Require that protective equipment and items be distributed in correctional facilities initially to people who exhibit flu-like symptoms and care workers; require corrections to increase inventory of face masks to distribute eventually to all incarcerated people in its custody.
• Make available personal hygiene, cleaning, and sanitation supplies free of charge to anyone that remains incarcerated. Hand sanitizer, bleach, and other essential preventative products must be permitted and should not be considered “contraband.” 
• Publicly disclose to family and affected parties where persons are being imprisoned and conditions of incarceration.
• Distribute information in accessible formats on COVID-19 and provide daily updates.

Ensure safety and access to people currently incarcerated:

• Put an end to forced labor in prisons and institute a living wage and hazard pay for incarcerated workers. 
• If visits are temporarily halted, ensure physical visits resume once the health crisis is contained.
• Ensure access to phone calls and video “visitation” and expand for all incarcerated people right now and moving forward. This access should be provided free of charge. 
• Access to free commissionary prior to the event of a lockdown. 
• Ban the use of solitary confinement even as a means for quarantine. Any quarantine should be medical and take place in a hospital. 
• Ban the use of chemical agents, pepper spray, and any other device that can create or exacerbate breathing conditions.
• Waive all transaction fees and end delay period for people receiving money and messages. 

Ensure safety of people recently released:

• Cancel all probation, parole, and pretrial meetings.
• Provide resources for virtual/telephonic ICE check-ins and/or automatically postpone ICE check-ins with adequate notice to individuals.
• Ensure funding for emergency release programs, including support for transportation home, living stipend, and access to healthcare as well as funding for food stamps, housing vouchers, or hotel rooms for those returning home. 
• Ensure funding for community groups that will assist elderly and sick people who are released and returning home.

Protect migrant populations and undocumented residents:

• Suspend ALL immigration enforcement activities and operations. DHS must suspend deportations, immigration arrests, mass raids, detentions, and enforcement in sensitive locations.
• Immediate humanitarian parole should be granted for all detainees and there should be a postponement of all immigration court matters. 
• USCIS processes all applications that are pending to ensure the continuation of immigration status.

Free Em All! There must be a thorough plan to release people from jails, prisons, and detention centers. We demand:

• Use clemency power to commute the sentences of anyone who has a heightened vulnerability to COVID-19, including the elderly, pregnant women, people with serious illnesses, and people with otherwise compromised immune systems.
• Commute the sentences of people aged 50 and older who have served at least 10 years in DOCCS custody. 
• Commute the sentences of people with determinate or indeterminate sentences who have served at least half of their sentence and/or who have a maximum expiration/conditional release date within the next two years, regardless of medical history. 
• Expedite review of medical parole applications and urge the parole board to grant every eligible application.
• Commute the sentences of people with medical issues without regard to whether they meet the criteria for medical parole.
• Create and publically share transparent COVID-19 plans for every facility, including public updates about infection rates and spread, including disclosing how many COVID-19 tests and respirators have been allocated to correction agencies. 
• Put an end to forced labor in prisons and institute a living wage for incarcerated workers.
• Require that face masks be distributed in correctional facilities initially to people who exhibit flu-like symptoms and care providers; require corrections to increase inventory of face masks to distribute eventually to all incarcerated people in its custody.
• Commute the sentences of people serving time in county jails for minor offenses to reduce county jail populations; also commute sentences of people in county jails convicted of low level felonies who have sentences of between one and five years to further reduce intake.
• Require county jails to check everyone for COVID-19 symptoms.
• If visits are temporarily halted, ensure physical visits resume once the health crisis is contained.
• Reduce prison and jail populations by halting all new sentences.
• Reduce prison and jail populations by releasing all people held on probation and probation technical violations. 
• Stop issuing failure to appear warrants. 
• Cancel all probation, parole, and pretrial meetings as well as child welfare mandated meetings and check ins. Do not cancel supervised visitation and proceedings that could lead to reuniting children with their families.
• Ensure access to phone calls and video “visitation” and expand for all incarcerated people right now and moving forward. This access should be provided free of charge. 
• Make available personal hygiene, cleaning, and sanitation supplies free of charge to anyone that remains incarcerated. Hand sanitizer, bleach, and other essential preventative products must be permitted and should not be considered “contraband.”
• Commit to non-cooperation with ICE. 

Free Em All! There must be a thorough plan to release people from jails, prisons, and detention centers. We demand:

• Immediately release individuals over the age of 50 and others with a heightened vulnerability, including the elderly, pregnant women, people with illnesses, and people with otherwise compromised immune systems.
• Immediately stop admitting new people to city and county jails on money bonds. 
• Ensure access to phone calls and video “visitation” and expand for all incarcerated people right now and moving forward. This access should be provided free of charge. 
• Make available personal hygiene, cleaning, and sanitation supplies free of charge to anyone that remains incarcerated. Hand sanitizer, bleach, and other essential preventative products must be permitted and should not be considered “contraband.”
• Release anyone currently incarcerated in jails on a city or county sentence of less than one year. 
• If visits are temporarily halted, ensure physical visits resume once the health crisis is contained.
• Courts should immediately stop issuing failure to appear warrants. 
• Courts and correction agencies should cancel all probation, parole, and pretrial meetings.
• Disclose how many COVID-19 tests and respirators have been allocated to correction agencies. 
• Require that protective equipment and items be distributed in correctional facilities initially to people who exhibit flu-like symptoms and care workers; require corrections to increase inventory of face masks to distribute eventually to all incarcerated people in its custody.
• Create and publically share transparent COVID-19 plans for every facility including public updates about infection rates and spread including disclosing how many COVID-19 tests and respirators have been allocated to correction agencies. 
• Non-cooperation with ICE.

Many Black people are in unstable housing situations because of decades of redlining and predatory lending from banks. We have higher mortality rates and less access to healthcare because of systemic discrimination. Many of our communities do not have equal access to food, technology, or other needed resources at this moment.

We must ensure that Black communities have housing, healthcare, and access to education.

Ensure Access to Housing and Utilities for All:

• Moratorium on mortgage payments and taxes.
• Freeze on all rent and utilities. 
• Commit to providing vulnerable houseless residents, survivors of violence, and recently released individuals with safe and sanitary community-based housing. If emergency “isolation and quarantine” housing is possible, permanent decent housing for all must be possible too. Housing provision commission set up to allocate housing to those in need.
• Increase funding for domestic and sexual violence shelters and agencies. 
• Make any bail outs contingent on guarantee that unfilled hotels and private housing units will be made available to those in need of housing. Ensure that buildings with vacant units, empty hotel units, and unused Airbnb apartments are released to house sick and at-risk people that otherwise do not have access to other private housing.  
• Declare a moratorium on utility shut-offs and institute a grace period on payments.

End Housing Discrimination:

End any housing and services restrictions for people with a history of justice involvement.

Ensure Access to safe Quarantine facilities:

Ensure equal access to quarantine is provided in the same settings for non-disabled and disabled people alike.

Ensure Access to preventive and urgent healthcare for all:

• Provide medicare for all single-payer universal healthcare to all people living in the United States, including people who are not documented as well as incarcerated people and people under state supervision.  
• Waive all co-pays for medical expenses for COVID-19 related illness. 
• Provide Free COVID-19 testing, treatment, and services for ALL, regardless of immigration status. Black, brown, undocumented, and low-income communities are more vulnerable to health and economic crises. 
• The Public charge rule should be immediately repealed to allow those exposed to COVID-19 to seek healthcare without fear. 
• Ensure continuity of home and community-based services, including allowing people receiving home and community-based services to hire on the spot without traditional citizenship verification and background checks, and waive restrictions on hiring partners and family members.
• Force insurance companies to provide at least a 90-day supply of medicines, controlled medicines, and consumable supplies; and waive all telehealth fees.
• Waive fees related to Medicaid-funded transportation programs and provide workers with access to preventative equipment and disinfecting supplies.
• Provide free, safe, and accessible family planning and reproductive healthcare and abortions. Without regard for state restrictions or limitations.
• Provide free, safe, and accessible gender affirming medical care.
• Ensure health protections for all workers who are considered essential or frontline workers (including healthcare workers, care-givers, grocery store and pharmacy workers, cleanings and janitorial services, lawyers, legal workers, social workers, childcare providers, delivery workers, etc). Workers should be provided with the necessary safety equipment and training to ensure their safety. This includes masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, disinfectants sprays, and cleaners. 
• Suspend all Continuing Disability Reviews under the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs.

Ensure that students have their educational, emotional, and nutritional needs meet through this crisis and beyond:

• Provide grants to local schools, including technical schools and non-traditional schools, to ensure access to needed technology (including assistive technology) for all students.
• Provide full funding for emergency, mental and physical health resources at public schools. All public schools should have fully resourced wellness centers and emergency supplies. 
• Ensure access to healthy meals for all students and their families while schools are closed.

Housing and Health for All! All barriers to housing, healthcare and education must be removed. We demand:

• Immediately suspend all evictions statewide.
• Moratorium on utility shut-offs and institute a grace period on payments.
• Moratorium on mortgages and tax payments. 
• Commit to providing vulnerable houseless residents and recently released individuals with safe and sanitary community-based housing alternatives to protect against the spread of COVID-19.
• Institute a moratorium on any housing and services restrictions for people with a history of justice involvement.
• Ensure access to unfilled hotels and private housing units through state subsides to hotels and housing units. We demand that buildings with vacant units, empty hotel units, and unused Airbnb apartments be released to house sick and at-risk people that otherwise do not have access to other private housing.  
• Declare a moratorium on sweeps and confiscations of houseless people and their property.
• Provide housing options for survivors of violence.

Healthcare

• Ensure no cuts to Medicaid. States should also eliminate the Medicaid “global cap” and act immediately to ensure that everyone has health insurance, regardless of their immigration status.
• Declare a moratorium on all co-pays.
• Do not bill for any COVID-related health care costs.
• Institute universal healthcare for all state residents including undocumented peoples. 
• Ensure continuity of home and community-based services.
• Require insurers to cover off-formulary prescriptions. 
• Ensure that people who require ventilators will not have them taken away at hospitals, ventilator usage will not be determined on the basis of disability or age, and no incentives for people that require ventilators to not visit hospitals. 
• Ensure health protections for all workers, who are considered essential or frontline workers (including healthcare workers, care-givers, grocery store and pharmacy workers, cleanings and janitorial services, lawyers, legal workers, social workers, childcare providers, delivery workers, etc). Workers should be provided with the necessary safety equipment and training to ensure their safety. This includes masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, disinfectants sprays, and cleaners. 
• Provide free, safe, and accessible family planning and reproductive healthcare including access to abortion and increased resouces for birthing people, including: 

• Providing funding to community-based organizations that are working to improve maternal health outcomes, particularly for Black women;
• Growing and diversify the perinatal workforce to ensure that every mom receives maternity care and support from people she can trust;
• Improving data collection processes and quality measures to better understand the causes of the maternal health crisis in the United States and inform solutions to address it;
• Investing in maternal mental health care.
• Establish emergency standards as preventive measures to significantly lower risk for workers at highest risk, including home aid workers, childcare workers, cashiers, etc. 

Education

• Provide grants to local schools, including technical schools and non-traditional schools, to ensure access to needed technology (including assistive technology) for all students.
• Provide full funding for emergency, mental and physical health resources at public schools. All public schools should have fully resourced wellness centers and emergency supplies. 
• Ensure access to meals for all students and their families while schools are closed.

Housing and Health for All! All barriers to housing, healthcare and education must be removed. We demand:

• Commit to providing vulnerable houseless residents and recently released individuals with safe and sanitary community-based housing.
• Ensure access to unfilled hotels and private housing units through state subsides to hotels and housing units. We demand that buildings with vacant units, empty hotel units, and unused Airbnb apartments be released to house sick and at-risk people that otherwise do not have access to other private housing.  
• Declare a moratorium on sweeps and confiscations of houseless people and their property.
• Declare a moratorium on evictions and immediately suspend all evictions citywide.
• Institute a moratorium on any housing and services restrictions for people with a history of justice involvement.
• Declare a moratorium on utility shut-offs and institute a grace period on payments.
• Declare a moratorium on mortgages and tax payments.
• Provide housing options for survivors of violence.
• Develop strategies that maintain the independence of all people in group homes, mental health residential centers, and other institutions. 

Healthcare

• Declare a moratorium on all co-pays.
• Do not bill for any COVID-19-related health care costs.
• Ensure continuity of home and community-based services.
• Ensure health protections for all workers, who are considered essential or frontline workers (including healthcare workers, care-givers, grocery store and pharmacy workers, cleanings and janitorial services, lawyers, legal workers, social workers, childcare providers, delivery workers, etc). Workers should be provided with the necessary safety equipment and training to ensure their safety. This includes masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, disinfectants sprays, and cleaners. 
• Establish emergency standards as preventive measures to significantly lower risk for workers at highest risk, including home aid workers, childcare workers, etc. 
• Increase culturally specific on-the-ground services for people with mental health or other needs.
• Moratorium on all involuntary commitments and the release of patients involuntarily committed.

Education

• Provide grants to local schools, including technical schools and non-traditional schools, to ensure access to needed technology (including assistive technology) for all students.
• Provide full funding for emergency, mental and physical health resources at public schools. All public schools should have fully resourced wellness centers and emergency supplies. 
• Ensure access to healthy meals for all students and their families while schools are closed.

We cannot allow this crisis to be an excuse to disenfranchise more people. Democracy is more important now than ever.

We must ensure that ALL people have access to the ballot and do not have to risk their health to vote. 

• Provide nationwide emergency vote by mail and online voting to make sure all people can vote. 
• Waive petitioning requirements for political campaigns. 
• Expand access to non-excuse early voting. 
• Enact universal automatic registration measures.
• Extend voter registration deadlines for all elections, especially those that have been postponed due to COVID-19.
• Ensure all mail-in ballots are hand-marked paper ballots. 
• Allowing formerly and presently incarcerated people to vote. 

• Expand vote-by-mail options. 
• Extend early voting dates and times statewide. 
• Ensure polling locations are sanitized, healthy, safe, and accessible for all voters. 
• Communicate all changes to voters. 
• Waive petitioning requirements for political campaigns. 
• States should expand early voting options and allow at least two weeks of early in-person voting to reduce long lines and administrative stress on Election Day. Once doing so, elections administrators must educate the public about these options and urge them to come in early; such announcements benefit all.
• Early voting sites should follow the same procedures outlined for polling places, which we detail below.
• Mail-in ballot options should be made available to all registered voters (not just those on absentee voter lists). All voters should have ballots mailed to them and be provided with a list of options as to how to cast their completed ballots (including pre-paid postage for mail return).
• Given that mail-in voting may be the only option to cast a ballot for people who need assistance or who are immune-compromised, states must allow voters who cannot vote in person — particularly people with disabilities, illness, or language assistance needs — to obtain assistance completing and submitting ballots from individuals they designate.
• Options for requesting, receiving, and returning mail-in ballots should be expanded, while maintaining the security of the voting system. States should offer multiple methods of requesting mail-in ballots, including online, in person, by phone, and by mail. Secure options for returning ballots should be expanded and deadlines for mail-in ballots to be requested and returned should be relaxed.
• States must undertake aggressive voter education campaigns as they make necessary changes to their policies and practices and must additionally counter any disinformation with facts and accurate information.
• States must implement automatic voter registration and cease purging of voters. 
• Extend the right to vote to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. 
• Ensure access to Government: All government entities need to accept remote signatures and attestations, and remote appearances — for court cases, hearings, social service agency government contracts, and more. 

In times of crisis, whether Katrina or the uprisings in Ferguson, often state and federal governments misuse resources and militarize response against our communities. Crisis becomes an excuse for criminalization.

In national disasters, protecting the people and the broader public health and safety is priority.  We must ensure that public protection is not abused or militarized.

• Immediate Amendment of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Stafford Act) to be mandatory based on independent criteria that prioritizes the preservation of life and no longer at the President’s discretion.
• Engage in a robust process to replace our disaster response and planning laws in order to ensure our communities are built back more resilient and protected from militarized policing.
• Include an immediate halt to all energy and petrochemical infrastructure building as part of any declaration of a state of emergency. 
• Ensure emergency powers of a formal disaster declaration do not result in the heightened surveillance, policing, criminalization of individuals or communities, militarization, and abuse of power in marginalized communities and protected classes of people.
  • Redirect federal policing and military dollars to agencies and groups providing medical, emotional, and other types of support. 
  • Forbid the police, national guard and others to detain or arrest people for breaking curfews, stay at home orders, shelter in place orders or other provisions enacted as part of state of emergency. 
  • Suspend arrest for all poverty-related offenses, including sex work and drug trade as well as and crimes of petty theft that may occur during this pandemic as supplies are scarce and people are losing money.
  • Implement and enforce a zero tolerance policy for police abuse of authority or abusive policing. 
  • Federal requirement for transparent and robust emergency planning that safeguards human and civil rights and ensures communities are built back more resilient to future disasters.
  • Include the immediate cessation of all petrochemical, toxic, and polluting industry construction as part of any declaration of a state of emergency. 
  • Declare access to the internet as an essential public utility in all disaster declarations.

• Ensure emergency powers of a formal disaster declaration do not result in the heightened surveillance, policing, criminalization of individuals or communities, militarization and abuse of power in marginalized communities and protected classes of people.
• Suspend arrest for all minor offenses as well as for all poverty-related offenses, including sex work and drug trade.
• Limit the ability of police to arrest or detain people for breaking curfews, stay at home, shelter in place or or other provisions enacted as part of public health efforts or pursuant to a state of emergency. 
• Zero tolerance for police abuse of authority of abusive policing. 
• Reframe from rhetoric, policies, or practices that criminalize entire communities.
• Transparent emergency planning that prioritizes safeguarding human and civil rights. 
• Include an immediate halt to permits for all energy and petrochemical infrastructure building as part of any declaration of a state of emergency.

• Suspend arrest for all minor offenses and for all poverty related offenses, including sex work and drug trade.
• Forbid the detainment or arrest of people for breaking curfews, stay at home orders, shelter in place orders or other provisions enacted as part of state of emergency. 
• Zero tolerance for police abuse of authority of abusive policing. 
• Reframe from rhetoric, policies, or practices that criminalize entire communities.
• Transparent emergency planning that prioritizes safeguarding human and civil rights.
• Include an immediate halt to permits for all energy and petrochemical infrastructure building as part of any declaration of a state of emergency.