When a prisoner dies of coronavirus, is the virus really to blame?

It's the prison, not the pandemic

Handcuffs.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

Federal prisons began a national lockdown Wednesday. Intended to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, the lockdown will last a minimum of two weeks, confining prisoners to cells with dimensions around 6-by-8 feet for most of the day.

Perhaps it will help. More likely, I worry, the lockdown will be too little, too late. Inmates will remain packed in close quarters, eating and bathing communally, disproportionately likely to have comorbidities which exacerbate the risk posed by COVID-19, and too often stuck with insufficient medical care or hygiene supplies. More likely, our correctional system's handling of this pandemic will cast a tragic spotlight on our nation's desperate need for prison reform.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.