♪ ("LAST WEEK TONIGHT"
THEME PLAYS) ♪
Our main story tonight
concerns the coronavirus.
You know, the thing you have to
regularly convince your parents
still exists.
"Oh you went to a Shony's,
did ya?
Who else was there?
The whole town?
Wow. Please stay inside
you extremely fragile maniacs."
In recent weeks, there's been
a series of alarming spikes
all over the country.
But one particular kind of place
has been getting hit
especially hard.
Prisons are seeing
an alarming spike.
 Data collected by
 the New York Times shows
 the number of inmates infected
 is above 68,000.
 That's doubled over
 the last month.
Prison deaths tied to the virus
 have risen by 73 percent
 since mid-May.
 The five largest known
 clusters of the virus
 are in correctional
 institutions.
Yeah. It's true. The five
largest clusters
of coronavirus
are correctional institutions.
Which is so terrible, it sounds
like an announcement produced
by some sort of bad news
generator that spits out
random sentences like,
"Confederate statue inks
10-episode deal with Quibi,"
or, "TikTok hamster charged
with four counts
of vehicular manslaughter,"
or,
"Sean Hannity dating
Ainsley Earhardt."
One of those is real,
and it's the worst one.
And the facts that coronavirus
is rampaging through prisons
and jails is especially alarming
given that
there are 2.2 million people
being held in them
across the country.
And inmates are generally
a group
with higher health risks.
Between 1999 and 2016,
the number of people 55 or older
in prison has increased
280 percent.
And people inside jails
are more likely
to be immunocompromised
with chronic health issues
like diabetes and hypertension.
So this is an immensely
vulnerable population.
And inmates, very much know that
as this advocate explains.
I personally am in contact
with more than 300
people who are incarcerated.
They report to me day in
and night out,
"Lewis, this is like me standing
in the middle
of I-95 in New York.
Right in the middle of the road
 and cars zipping by me
 at 117 miles an hour
 in both directions.
 And it's just a matter of time
before I'm hit with this thing.
Yeah, inmates feel like
it's just a matter of time
before they get sick
which is terrible.
Because we don't punish people
by giving them diseases.
Take me for instance. I don't
have Lyme disease
because of my 2008 public
intoxication charge, no.
I have it because those deer,
knew how to
fucking party back then.
I gotta be honest, I miss
that crew.
So tonight, let's talk about
a few things.
Why the coronavirus has spread
so rapidly behind bars,
the impact that has on
absolutely everyone,
and what we can and should
be doing about it.
And just as a quick refresher,
jails are where
people are detained
while awaiting trial,
or held for minor sentences.
While prisons typically hold
people who've been convicted
and are serving sentences
of more than a year.
And whether you're in
a jail or a prison,
you are probably in a facility
that is in no way built
to cope with a crisis like this.
Because it's basically
impossible to keep 6-feet apart
in a tiny cell.
As Ted Koppel found out
a few years ago.
TED KOPPEL: Confinement
 and social distancing
 are mostly incompatible.
You don't have a hell of a lot
of room in here.
You don't. You can only--
it's like one person
can only move at a time.
Like if I'm-- this is...
we have to turn sideways.
Right, it's hard to practice
social distancing
when you live in what's
basically a closet
with two beds and a toilet.
In fact, I'd argue you can't
practice most things
under those circumstances.
Apart from games like,
"Let's try not to
accidentally hug each other,"
and,
"Who can poop the quietest?"
And incidentally the answer
to that last question,
is Blake Lively. She poops
the quietest,
that is simply, a fact.
And some of the steps
authorities have taken
to deal with this problem
are ridiculously small.
As this worried mother
of one prisoner explains.
DEBORAH BETHEA:
 They've been locked down,
for like, uh 23 and a half hours
 a day,
 they get to come out
 for like ten minutes
 and use the phone, and use,
 you know,
 take a shower
 and then go back in.
And those small cells
they're telling them,
"Sleep from head to foot."
But I mean, even if I'm
head to foot
if you're in a small cell,
it doesn't make a difference.
Exactly.
And that's probably
not comforting
for a mother to hear, is it?
"Oh don't worry mom,
all prisoners are instructed
to sleep head to foot.
And when they're awake
we tell them to breathe
in opposite directions.
We're pretty sure, we've got
this covered."
Then there's the simple issue
of soap.
As everyone knows by now,
a key way to protect against
the coronavirus, is by
regularly washing your hands.
But, in jails and prisons,
soap may be rationed
or not available at all.
And if inmates need more,
they may have to buy it
from the commissary.
And as we have covered before
on this show,
despite doing most of the work
to keep prisons
and jails running, inmates only
make pennies for their labor.
In fact, some facilities
have even posted signs
about the importance of
hand washing,
but then continued to charge
inmates for access to soap.
And multiple prisoners
have felt that they needed
to go out of their way
to try and alert the world
to this dangerous shortage.
This is what they gave us.
This little-ass thing of soap
to stay clean
and like wash our hands
and shit.
And this for every two weeks.
INMATE: They are not giving us
hand sanitizer,
they're not giving us
proper soap.
This is the soap dish
that's in our bathroom.
It's just pieces of soap
that everybody gotta wash
they're hands with.
We have two soap dispensers,
but sometimes on the weekend,
the soap runs out.
That is clearly awful.
There should always be
enough soap.
And I know if you wanted
to do a decent parody of me,
you wouldn't be too far off
if you slapped on a suit,
faked a British accent
and went around shrieking
"There should always be
enough soap!"
But, that doesn't make it
any less true does it?
There should always be
enough fucking soap.
And especially at that last
facility, at which as of April,
about 80 percent
of its residents
had contracted the virus.
And it's by no means
just cleaning products
that are scarce.
PPE is in such short supply,
that it's led to
prisoners wearing socks
on their hands
when they use the phone.
Which might be
the saddest sock puppet ever.
And testing has been so lacking,
that inmates can't be confident
about who does, and doesn't
have the virus.
And on top of that, if someone
does show symptoms,
they're often placed
in solitary confinement.
Because prisons have no where
else to quarantine them.
And it's not a great incentive
for inmates to come forward.
If your policy is basically,
look,
"Just tell us that you're sick,
and we'll put you
in the special punishment hole."
And when you take all of this
together:
the close quarters, the lack
of basic protections,
and the uncertainty
about the spread
of a potentially deadly virus,
it's honestly no surprise
that tensions can hit
a breaking point.
Aight man this is what happens
when the (CENSORED) coronavirus
is killing (CENSORED).
REPORTER: Just after
three o'clock Thursday afternoon
 an inmate took cellphone video
 inside the C-Block
 of the Lanson Correction
 Facility.
 Property destroyed,
 inmates out of their cells.
MAN: This (CENSORED)
is really going on around here.
REPORTER: Inmates complaining
 of conditions due to COVID-19.
(INMATE SHOUTING)
INMATE: Y'all don't wanna
give us no healthcare?
Hey y'all don't wanna give us
no healthcare?
This is what we do.
All you gotta do is give us
some motherfuckin' healthcare.
Yeah, and if anyone is thinking
that that's an extreme response,
I'd simply ask this: What else
are they supposed to do?
What other bargaining chip
do prisoners have
at their disposal right now?
This has actually been a bit
of a recurring theme lately,
but I'll say it again,
if it takes the destruction
of property for a system
to pay attention to human lives
than we are in
a dark fucking place.
And I know, that if you are
fortunate enough to have
little to no familiarity
with the prison system,
it can be easy to ignore
this problem.
And that attitude is actually
reflected
by some in local government.
In California, when an outbreak
in a Santa Barbara prison
made it difficult
for that county
to meet the state standards
for reopening,
local officials proposed
simply
not counting the prisoners.
With a county spokesman saying
that individuals are not
out in the community, so...
(READS PROMPT)
Which is the kind of thing
you should only really be saying
if there was a coronavirus
outbreak in Atlantis.
Look, they don't even
breathe air down there.
They're really a whole
separate population.
And the director of the Arkansas
Department of Health
tried to put an even more
optimistic spin
on the prison outbreaks
that they were having there.
These are high-risk settings
where COVID-19 can spread
very easily, very rapidly,
but they're also closed systems
and they don't necessarily
represent, uh,
the situation in Arkansas
in general.
The fortunate thing about
that kind of setting is that it,
um, it's not that hard
to contain it
because people aren't going
out and about.
Um,
they're not leaving the prison.
Okay. Even if prisons and jails
were closed systems,
which they are very much not,
for reasons we're about to
get into. It's weird
to call outbreaks
of a deadly virus "fortunate"
just because
they're confined to one place.
The news didn't go insane
covering Balloon Boy
because they were stoked
it was just one boy
contained in a homemade balloon,
careening through the sky.
No, it was treated
as an emergency
'cause there was a chance
he was gonna fucking die!
Thankfully of course, uh,
there turned out
to be zero boys in that balloon,
as it was later revealed
to be a hoax pulled off
by the boy's parents,
in order...
And holy shit,
remember when balloon boy
was the craziest story
you had to worry about?
2009 truly was a simpler time
to be alive.
And look, for the record,
people are absolutely
going out and about
from prisons.
Because not everyone
in a prison is in prison.
There are around 445,000
non-inmate staff personnel
working in prisons
across the country.
And those workers have reported
over 9,000 coronavirus cases.
We might as well be handing them
coronavirus gift bags
as they leave work every day
and head back out
into the community.
And staff bringing the virus
in and out of facilities
isn't the only way
that it can spread.
It can hop from prison
to prison, as inmates
are transferred around,
and it can also get out
into the community
when sick prisoners are treated
at local hospitals,
particularly in rural areas
where hospitals
can easily get overwhelmed.
And that is before
we get into jails,
where there is a constant churn
of people
moving in and out.
In a typical week...
...and another 200,000 walk out.
So, outbreaks in prisons
and jails
can easily spread
to the larger community.
In fact, one study suggested
that as of mid-April,
more than...
...could be linked
to just one facility,
the Cook County Jail.
And while the jail
strongly disputes
those findings,
there were activists
who saw the danger signs
early on, like this man,
who was warning people
back in March.
As of right now,
Cook County Jail
is a virtual Petri dish.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart,
he is the captain
of a death cruise ship.
Wow... a death cruise ship.
Look, cruise ships
are already comfortably
bad enough,
without putting death
into the equation.
It's like if our parent company
re-branded themselves
as Genocide AT&T.
Guys, guys,
I don't know how you could
possible make a worse experience
than the one that you're already
providing people.
The point here is,
coronavirus doesn't stay
behind bars,
it travels easily.
Which actually brings us
to our final question:
What can we do?
Well, realistically,
we need to be getting
as many people out
of prisons and jails
as possible.
Which is frankly,
something we should
be doing anyway,
but right now,
we really don't have much
of a choice.
The fewer people
in these facilities,
the easier it will be
for those people
to socially distance,
uh the fewer staff
you'll need on-site,
and the lower your demand
for PPE.
But, of course,
whenever anyone suggests
releasing inmates,
this is the inevitable response.
The public just doesn't want
to have a thousand burglars,
thieves, and, you know,
identity forgers
and others out on the street.
We've got enough--
problems watching our homes
and businesses,
purses and wallets right now,
we don't need any more of this.
All right.
First off,
taxidermied George Lucas,
you seem to be struggling
to think of more than one
kind of criminal there.
Burglar, thief,
identity forger,
those are all just
synonyms for stealing.
What about all the other
criminals in Texas?
Like the man who posed
as a Beto O'Rourke volunteer,
broke into someone's home,
and took a Popsicle.
Or the man who was forced
to return 3,000 dollars
in prize money,
for cheating
in Bass fishing contests.
Or even,
a woman who drank wine
out of a Pringles can,
while driving an electric cart
around a Walmart parking lot
for several hours?
Texas has a vibrant crime scene
with a lot more variety
than you're frankly giving it
credit for.
And I'd argue
that there are some people
we have no excuse
for not releasing
immediately.
Especially those awaiting
trial in jail,
who pose little risk
to public safety,
and are only there
because they couldn't afford
to post bail.
And, look,
I am not saying that
every person who's let out
due to the coronavirus
will behave perfectly.
No one can say that.
And I'm sure that you will see
people on TV excitedly
citing
isolated cases of people
who were released
and then did bad things.
You'll see that on shows
like...
...or...
But on balance,
the risks of carefully
letting people out
are vastly outweighed
by the risks of leaving
everyone inside.
As for prisons,
the bare minimum
we should do is release
offenders
who've served the majority
of their sentences.
Particularly,
the immunocompromised
and the elderly.
Those groups are at high risk
for the virus,
and the elderly are also
a very low risk
to re-offend.
We could also place
certain prisoners on furlough,
basically pausing
their sentence,
and having them return
to finish it
once the pandemic
is under control.
Or you can place them
under house arrest.
And at the national level,
to his,
and I can't believe
I'm going to say this, credit,
Attorney General Barr
released a DOJ memo,
instructing federal prisons
to reduce their populations.
Which sounds like a great idea,
in theory.
But, to date,
they've only done that
by around three percent.
Which is even worse
than the typical state prison,
because they've reduced
their population
by just five percent.
And that's simply
not enough.
And I know this might put you
in the uncomfortable situation
of having to argue on behalf
of people
you might not find
inherently sympathetic.
Take the case of one
federal prisoner
who pushed hard
to be released.
A judge has rejected
convicted
pharmaceutical executive,
Martin Shkreli's request
to be let out of a prison
to research
a coronavirus treatment.
The presiding judge noted
 that probation officials
 viewed that claim
 as the type of, quote,
 delusional behavior
 that led to his conviction
 in the first place.
Yeah.
Martin Shkreli,
the pharma bro tried
to get released to home arrest
so that he could work
on developing a cure
for the coronavirus.
Presumably, so he could call it
Rona Juice and then sell it
for five thousand percent more
than it should cost.
And he was denied.
And when you hear that,
you might think, good,
fuck that guy.
And generally, yeah,
fuck that guy.
But in this instance,
despite the fact
that Martin Shkreli
is an attention-starved
tree frog,
who clearly wasn't held enough
as a tadpole,
and despite his reasoning
for why he should be released
being complete bullshit,
I don't want him
to contract the virus
and potentially die from it.
I don't want that for anyone,
none of us should.
And yet, right now,
millions of Americans
are currently stuck
in truly desperate straits,
and vastly disproportionally,
people of color.
And some prisoners
have become so desperate
they will risk punishment
to try and get anyone
in the outside world
to pay attention
to their situation.
Just watch this prisoner
openly using a contraband
cellphone,
which he knows will lead
to consequences
to try and raise an alarm.
AARON CAMPBELL:
This motherfucker over here
dying from corona,
they got this motherfucker
in my room.
They literally leaving us
in here to die.
NARRATOR:
 This is Aaron Campbell.
 He's an inmate
 at FCI Elkton,
 a low security federal prison
 in Ohio.
 He's using a contraband
 cellphone,
 and he knows he's gonna get
 in trouble
 for making this video.
No, I absolutely do not
want that.
And I have to tell you,
the authorities at that prison
have said that the men
in that video
were actually completely fine,
and neither were sick.
Although, you should also know,
that by
the government's own count,
at that one,
low-security institution,
more than 600 inmates
have tested positive
for coronavirus,
and nine have died.
And if you're wondering
how that prisoner is doing,
he's reportedly been
in solitary
since that video went viral
in early April.
And he wrote a letter
to reporters
saying that officials
told him...
A request he then refused.
Which is incredibly brave.
And that's coming from me,
a man who has never missed
an opportunity to say,
"I'm sorry"
for literally anything.
So at this point,
it's worth asking:
What the fuck are we doing here?
Particularly during
this pandemic,
but also in general.
Because there's obviously
a much larger discussion
to be had
about how millions of people
ended up incarcerated
in the first place,
and whether or not
prisons even work.
Which I would argue,
they absolutely do,
if your only goal
is to have a lot
of people in prison.
The fact is,
we should be de-populating
prisons and jails as quickly
as we can right now.
And I know how that sounds,
because we were all raised
hearing that
you shouldn't do the crime
if you can't do the time.
But in our current system,
you're never just being
sentenced to time.
You're being sentenced
to a lifetime of social stigma,
futile job interviews,
and roadblocks
to necessities
like housing.
All of that is immoral enough,
there is frankly
no reason whatsoever
we should now also be sentencing
people to die from a virus.
Because that's not justice,
it's neglect.
And it really matters.
Because as much as we'd like
to pretend
that incarcerated people
are a separate population,
they're not.
Whatever they've done,
they are still members
of our society.
And if this horrific year
has taught us one thing,
it's that we are all
on this
death cruise ship together.
