New York, NY, April 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights has expanded its #MassBailOut campaign, partnering with Mano Amiga and Faith in Texas to swiftly and responsibly release people from jails in Dallas and Hays County to help flatten the curve as the coronavirus threat intensifies.
Not only are jails dangerously overcrowded—making social distancing impossible—and low on necessary hygiene resources as basic as soap, but because they are short-term facilities, more than 200,000 people flow in and out of them every week. This constant churn makes jails potent incubators for COVID-19, enabling the spread of the virus to everyone on site, including guards and staff, as well as to the general public.
Most people caged in our jails have not been convicted of a crime; they simply cannot afford to pay their bail. They are mothers, fathers, grandparents, neighbors. And they are trapped in jail as COVID-19 approaches because they don’t have the $1,000 or even $100 (and sometimes as little as $25) needed to buy their freedom—and with it, the safety of sheltering at home with family.
