Progressive Prosecution in a Pandemic

Abstract

Flanders and Galoob explore the issue on progressive prosecution in the US in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic The pandemic alters the attitudes of state officials to incarceration in a very short time Since the beginning of the pandemic, many more people have been released, rather than detained, before trial Low-level offenders are being sentenced to home confinement More police are giving warnings for low-level offenses rather than making arrests, and prosecutors have established policies against prosecuting those arrested for low-level offenses As a result, prison and jail populations are declining, although it is too soon to tell how dramatic or permanent that decline will be These moves are driven by the fear and, in many cases, the reality of COVID-19 outbreaks in jails and prisons Correctional institutions are now virus hot spots, and states and localities do not want to be responsible for the human suffering or for the costs of caring for a rash of new patients At the same time, these reforms are in line with what so-called progressive prosecutors have proposed and fought to implement during the past several years