 I'm Josie Duffy-Rice. I'm president of the Appeal, we're a news outlet that produces original journalism about the criminal justice system. I'm also an Eric and Wendy Schmidt fellow at New America and co-host of the Justice in America podcast. I'm very honored to be here and to be joining you all for another social distancing social from Future Tense. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America and Arizona State University. Today we're talking about how COVID-19 is threatening prison health systems and I'm joined by Laurence Bartley, the director of News and Side with the Marshall Project. Hi, Laurence. Hi, Josie, how are you? I'm good, thank you so much for joining. Thank you for having me. Of course, of course. So let's start with just telling the audience a little bit about what we're seeing and hearing about what's happening in prisons right now across the nation with this virus. What are you hearing about in terms of how prisons are being hit, jails are being hit and what's the current situation if you had to kind of, I mean, there are thousands of correctional facilities so you can't just draw too broad of a brush across all of them, but what are we in general seeing, especially in places like New York City, Boston, Washington State, places that have been particularly hit hard? Well, in general, by the way, prisons are designed, it's virtually impossible to social distance. Cells are, like you see on TV, these long hallways when the doors are made of bars and people are right next to each other. So as you can imagine, if someone was to cough, then that cough miss were going to air and it can go in the cell next to a person to sell on top or below. Also, there are these dorm areas where people sleep in dorms, where cops are just three feet apart and there's no way to social distance at all. So as one would imagine that the virus is passing along pretty rapidly inside of correctional facilities, but what we've been noticing lately is that, which is no surprise to people who are incarcerated that they are the very last people to get tested or for any officials to pay close attention to. Because of that, you will see different pockets of states who are tested in entire facilities, but you don't see the entire country testing their entire prison population. So we just don't know how many people have been affected by the coronavirus. Last count, we just studied that, we done it in Marshall Project, we found that 9,437 people has tested positive for the coronavirus and that number is rising. The trend is going up just as on the outside, the curve is being flattened, but that number doesn't scratch the surface of how many people have been affected because people just simply aren't being tested. Yeah, I think like at Rikers, right? In New York City, which has obviously been hit the hardest in terms of cities nationwide, we're seeing a rate 10 times that of outside of people in Rikers who actually have been contracted the virus. And so what we know, right? And what I think people don't actually think about a lot when it comes to prisons and correctional facilities is how much mobility there is in the sense that people are constantly being released in these facilities, especially jails. People who work there go home to their families, their families go to work. We are talking about, we're not talking about just people being infected in the facility, right? When you allow for a virus to run rampant in such a small space, and those people are all staying in that small space, then we're also contributing to the illness outside of a jail or prison. Exactly, I mean, that's a point that I've been bringing up for about two or three weeks now that there can be a staff member who contracted the virus and that person can be handing out the mail to give it to someone who's incarcerated. An incarcerated person can go in a mess hall and pass it to numerous people throughout the facility. And those people can pass it to correctional officers in a whole another part of the jail. And that correction officer can bring it home to his family member, their family member go to work and pass it on to other people. So whereas we're flattening the curb out here, in a few months, we can see another spike in future waves start to occur because we didn't pay attention to what was happening in the correctional facilities, a place where, as I mentioned, they can't social distance, they can't wear masks because it's against the rules. They don't have gloves. They're just starting to give out cleaning supplies like bleach, water down, bleach, and perell. But that's not everywhere. A lot of places don't have perell. They can't clean themselves or stay safe. So that's a very good point you raised. Yeah, let's talk about supplies briefly because there's a lot of talk about making sure you're washing your hands, making sure you're sanitizing, making sure you're wearing a mask. We have this very few things that someone could do in a situation where they're trapped with lots of people to maybe stave off an infection and in prison, that's basically impossible. You made the point about water down, bleach, and perell, but I think would you say that basically what you're seeing is just a complete unavailability of supplies? I would say that, you know, some plywood, for instance, New York state, they're officials, they're trying to issue supplies, but it's a chain of command. It has to, a superintendent just can't say, I'ma give everyone bleach, I'ma give everyone masks, they have to get approved from Albany, Albany has to get approved from the government, but they're trying to trickle down, they try to do something. So they're passing out water down bleach and start New York state correctional facilities, but then they got different places like Mississippi and Arkansas and these different places where it's different there. And sometimes they don't have access to supplies or even soap for that matter. One guy in Mississippi reached out to me and said that he has to share a sink with 60 people in his dorm. You have to share 10 sinks between 60 people and they have soap there and a sink's a dirty and they have to share like, it's crumbles of soap. Little, it's not just a soap bar, there's crumbled pieces of it that they all have to share. So it's really tough for these people to keep themselves safe. And then I think the other thing that we know, right, is that sometimes you only can get soap if you haven't enough money to get soap if you can afford it from the commissary. And that has its own sort of economic implications, right? It also has implications about who has family they can rely on to actually give them commissary money, who has resources like that. And I think some of the stories we're hearing at the appeal, right? People are trading their packets of food for soap or their packets of food for a face mask. And much of prison is an underground economy just because we don't provide people in these facilities with the resources that they need in order to have what they need ever. But I think especially in a moment like this, my personal opinion is that it's neglect, right? I mean, it is not only asking for these people to get sick to force them to pay for soap, but it's asking for the people who work there to get sick. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing left and right that correctional officers are dying from coronavirus right now because we haven't prioritized their health as well as the people in prison who are also many of them are also dying. Yes, and correctional officers are forced to conduct strip searches. Right. It must be very intimate, search sales at a time like this and their lives at risk. And I'm talking about the incarcerated people, but correctional officers feel it too and their people too. And they're being ignored. They're being forced to do things that are putting everyone at risk. And it's sad to do. And I'm glad you brought up the point about how economically it can be tough for someone incarcerated. Unfortunately, I was incarcerated. I went to prison when I was 17 years old and I did 27 years in two months. And on the inside, I know that my prison job at the least, at least a person can make in a New York state prison is 10 cents an hour. And I mean, I was one of the fortunate ones. I was making $20 every two weeks. Right. I was fortunate. So I had to ration that money between food, soap, toiletries and whatever I needed to sustain myself for two weeks because going to the mess hall wasn't an option. Right. So imagine those people who the state provides one bar of state soap every week for the people. How can they wash their hands every time they go in and out of their cell, every time they touch cardboard or metal surface that all plastic surface where the virus could live on for a substantial period of time. So it's very tough in those situations. And it kind of fuels that underground economy. And then just thinking that those who don't have the means, don't have the hustle or don't have the ability to bar or something, they can lose their life just because of that. And you know, it's, it really a lot of the narrative around this virus, right? Is we have to help each other. We have to support each other. We're all in this together, et cetera. But what are we, what, what does it mean when if you have a bar of soap, 59 other people, you know, in your general area don't like it doesn't, you can't save yourself then and you can't really save other people. And what we're, what we're once again doing, I mean, is saying to the world, not only that incarcerated people don't matter, but that we're not even gonna give them the tools to be able to protect their own health. The way that, you know, we're punishing them in such a different, such a more extreme way than I think most people think about incarceration. Right, definitely. You're right. And unfortunately it's sad, you know, but I hope that, that, you know, we all hope that this, this virus wasn't here, that we don't have to be in this situation, but there are lessons to learn from this situation. And like you mentioned that we're all in this together. Once we all, well, I think we all already figured it out that a virus can pass, like from people incarcerated to people on the outside, but acting on it, figuring out and acting on it is two different things. But once, once what we know to be true coming along, coming to alignment with how, you know, state officials are acting on it and the government is acting on it to trickle down to the person that's sitting in the cell inside of a correctional facility with only 10, making only 10 cents an hour, sweeping them up in the floor. And we do things to help that individual which in turn will help everybody else stay healthy. Then we effectively turn the corner in right direction. So I'm hoping that we see something like that occur. So after this is all over, then we can start looking at punishment differently and people are treated differently going forward. So let's talk about solutions, quote unquote, right? I mean, one of the back end solutions is medical care. Healthcare providing, you know, if you're not gonna do anything to prevent people from getting a virus in a correctional facility, are you going to be able to treat them? And that's something I don't actually think that we talk, you know, that the world talks enough about or the political structures talking enough about, which is how poor the healthcare system is in correctional facilities. I mean, how just, I mean, even, I mean, there are some really, really incredible doctors who work in this system. So it's not to say that each individual in it is poor, but they're not given the supplies, the time and the resources that they need to be able to provide healthcare to those who are struggling the most. Right, I've heard so many people who aren't incarcerated and they have their theories on what go on. And one man telling me that healthcare systems inside of prisons, they are the reason why these entities are able to buy services because they bid on contracts in order to do so. Right. These contracts they bid on, they might say, if I say they bid against another service provider and service provider A says, I can give you 10 services at this price. Right. So when they do that, it kind of dilutes the service that they give every day person. Like when a person goes in with chest pains, they might say, all right, take this aspirin for your chest pains on courtesy, but they give for everything. They have a person who's been incarcerated for a long time. They know that it's just one medication that they give for almost every person. And that's what they're going to do. And that's what they're going to do. And that's what they're going to do. And that's what they're going to do. They're going to pay for almost everything. Right. So imagine. They pay for that, right? Right. Some states make you pay for it. But other people, I've seen bills that they wanted to co-pay for people who are poor for the beginning way to go to prison and their families aren't published. So it's like crazy. But even if it isn't any co-pay, it's just real tough on people. So imagine you just exacerbate an already stressed healthcare system. It might be some great doctors that you mentioned, but they have limited resources and they have to follow the culture of how they handle the incarcerated patients in order to maintain their jobs. And then this is exacerbated by this COVID-19 crisis, then you have a lot of bodies piled up as a result. Yeah, I think that's, I mean, what you hear about the sort of expectations of people in the medical industry in correctional facilities, it's how much can we get for how little money? Which is not, it's funny in an era where it's like, you can keep your healthcare if you want to, right? Like what we know is that in correctional facilities, you have no choice about who provides you medical care, what they provide and whether they're willing to listen to you. And we keep hearing stories at the appeal of people saying, well, I went in and I said, there was one out of Louisiana, a man who said, I think I have coronavirus and Louisiana prisons are being hit horribly right now, just really, really rough. If I have coronavirus, I think I have COVID-19. And he got, first of all, beaten by like sheriff's deputies in jail for asking for help. And then once you get help, if they say, we're not gonna treat you for this, you don't have any recourse, you don't have any option, right? And so what we're, I mean, and the other thing we're seeing left and right is like, it's not as if there are a lot of doctors, there's usually one, maybe two. And if they get sick, what do we do, right? And so every sort of social ill that kind of is encompassed in the criminal justice system more generally, but I also think in sort of the American social fabric, is so exacerbated in prisons. And we're seeing what happens now when you have a system that doesn't take care of people's basic human needs and something like this virus hits. Yeah, that's really something. And I remember, like, as you were speaking, I'm just thinking of so many different scenarios, like what if the doctor you mentioned gets sick and it's not there, then what the facility has to do is they usually have a contract with the closest medical facility next to them. So they put you in an ambulance and try to send you there. We wrote a story on incarcerated, coming to a, with COVID-19, coming to an ICU near you. So you send an incarcerated person to a local hospital area to be treated, but then there's people in the hospital, people in the community that don't want you there. We don't want this incarcerated person there. And I understand the logic. Some people who are incarcerated did some horrible things, but I also know that I've been there for many years, for like over 20 years. And there's some people that I know that I've spent more time with than I spent with my own parents. And they became like family members to me. And some of those people have done a 180 from what they were. Some of them were into drugs and into some horrible things. And they're just so embarrassed by the things that they've done. And when they see on the news on parolees or vilified, they're just so hurt because that's not who they see themselves as being. You know, 95% of those people are getting out and they just want to be, they want to live. And some parts of them want to be accepted. But when they don't even have a chance to start from go, like go being released because the community or government or people at large don't feel that they should be treated for COVID-19 because they are less worthy or because it's taking away resources from someone else. Whatever the reasons are, it results in the death of somebody who's on the plane. I just want a chance to redeem myself. And what we're doing is we're sentencing people to death, right? Just by function of them being in prison right now. When we, you know, you meet a lot of people who say, okay, I don't believe in the death penalty but I do believe in, you know, people going away, which is, I mean, I understand that, but, you know, what we're doing is sentencing people to death. And you can, you know, you can assume that if a prison is or a jail is actually transporting someone to the hospital, they're in rough shape, right? They're not transporting you to the hospital for a cold. They're not transporting you into the hospital until you're in really, really bad shape because we don't prioritize those people. So we know that this fear of, well, they're gonna come into the ICU and they're gonna, they're dangerous. They're not dangerous in a moment of being, you know, trying to hope that they live through a virus any more than anybody else is dangerous in a moment where they're hoping they live through a virus. But, you know, you brought something up about 95% of people getting out. And it reminds me that a lot of people in prison are really elderly. We have spent 30 years sentencing people to these excessively long sentences. And what does that mean now? It means we have people in prison, tons and thousands and thousands of people in prison who, you know, have been in prison for 30 years. I think you were, you served 27 years, right? Yes. You know, we're talking about 50, 60s, 70s, 70 year old people who are sitting in prison cells right now. And we know who's at most risk of the virus. I thought you, I'd love to hear you talk a little about the elderly populations in prison because I don't think that's how most people picture prisons, right? And whenever I go, I take someone to a correctional facility for the first time. That's, I feel like that's the first thing I always say is I didn't realize there were so many old people in prison. There are, there are a lot of old people. When you talk about elderly, remind me of this guy named Cote that I know. He was, he was always been in prison for a very long time, over 30 or maybe 40 years. He had gotten so bad that he had a cane. He used to walk very fragile and, you know, people in prison, they got this thing of like, out here, they give you a dad. And I don't know if people realize that, you know, you see the fist bump, the fist bump started in prison. The fist bump started because usually if you shake someone's hand, I don't officially think that you're passing something. Reach your friend, people started giving fist bumps instead. So it was this old man named Cote on the cane. I saw him in the hallway and I wanted to give him a fist bump but I had to go down to like where his hand was holding the cane to kind of bump his fist. And I almost knocked him over because he was so frail. And I remember feeling just so messed up that I almost did that to him. And to know that there's so many other people like that who are frail and they might be, because they're at the end of their life, they experience, the body starts to break down in so many different ways. And then for COVID-19 to hit, those people basically don't have a chance. Even the medical prison facilities that they go to, you're still piled on top of each other. We just did a story about one in California that Abby Van Sickle, she penned a story about it with a lot of different photos. It's just horrible, a horrible looking cluttered situation. It's tough. And you know, the thing is, I think what makes it especially just unjust to me is the fact that these are people who, their chances of committing another, I mean, crime at all, much less a serious crime, what we would consider to be a serious crime is close to no. I mean, what we know about crime and people's likelihood of committing, I mean, what we would consider a violent crime, right? Is that the older they get, the less likely it is. And we know what it means when someone who's 17 does something, it doesn't mean that they're gonna do it at 27, 37, 47. And especially not 57 and 67 and 77. I mean, you let these people out of prison, right, to save their lives and you're not putting other lives at risk, but that's actually not a calculation most people are willing to make. Right, right. I mean, people age out. Right. Fortunately, it's been, you see people being released from jails, but you don't see a lot of people being released from prison in this era. You know, there's, and I heard Governor say they're gonna start letting people out well, 55 years and older, you know, but a lot of people haven't got out. We hear talk about it, but if you do the research, a lot of people haven't got out, but you have countries, Iran that let out 85,000 prisoners. Right, right. I'm just reminding people to please submit questions if you want. We'll start asking them in just a second if we get any in. You can do it at the Q and A button at the bottom. But I wanted to talk about mass release because it's traditionally been the third rail, I think, in political decisions. And I think even in a moment like this where what we know is if you don't let people out, they're going to get sick. People get sick. Many of them are going to die. In part because we have not allowed people in prison to take care of themselves, provide quality healthcare to make sure that they're healthy to be able to survive a virus like this. Are we, I know that we're hearing talk about people say, well, we're gonna let people out and some people are doing that. Would you say that that's something you're seeing widespread? I had to talk widespread, but I don't see a lot of people getting out. Right, exactly. I mean, you know, the BOP, the Bureau of Prisons, which is the federal prison system, they say they're gonna let a lot of people out. But when we look, we did a little research into the numbers, they haven't let a lot of people out because of this. And I hear all the time now people saying, well, if you let them out, there's not any resources out here where they're gonna go. People need shelters. And to the person on the inside that's trying to get out. And they finally talk about letting out. Then they want another excuse. So these shelters, no resources for you. They're just like, man, just let me out of here. Right. I have a better chance of faring out there with this more space. I could go to the store to buy perelle, Clorox, sanitary wipes, gloves, a mask. I can do that. Well, I can't do that in prison. So let the person out in order to let that person save his or her life. And in the country as a whole, the crime rate has been going down. There's a lot of fear that you let people out, we're gonna commit more crimes, et cetera, et cetera. But we don't know that, but it'd be interesting to see what happens. If they let people out and the crime rate doesn't spike, then what happens? Does that mean we had this mass incarceration thing all wrong? Right. What's gonna play out in the next couple of months is gonna be super interesting for numerous reasons. And look, I think, I mean, someone actually asked the question that prisoners at that age get out. How can they survive? You may not have housing, much less a job, and can they get support from the Pandemic Relief Fund? I think these are important questions. How do we provide for people who have been in prison 30, 40, 50 years? And in my experience, my clients who have been, for example, up for parole, like that has been their biggest obstacle, right? It's like parole boards saying, okay, well, we don't think you're a risk, but what are you gonna do now? You've been in prison forever, right? But what we know, I think, is what you're saying, A, that they might not have resources. I mean, there are resources in a lot of places for people who are returning from prison. So depending on where you are, what you have, but let's even assume worst case scenario, right? They may not have resources. It's better than being in the middle of what is basically sure to be a fire starter situation. Right. But to answer the question about pandemic relief fund, no, the federal pandemic relief fund has pretty much excluded anybody who's formerly incarcerated or currently incarcerated from getting those resources. And it's another way that we see us, we see the government more generally, but especially this federal government in particular, isolating formerly incarcerated people from opportunity. Yes. Once again. Yeah, exactly. Another question we're getting is about programming in prison, particularly educational and work training programs. And it's largely cease. So what's the effect of that? And what should facilities be doing to programming right now? The effect of that is tough. Like I said, I hear from a lot of people who are incarcerated and we've been sheltered in place, for what, six weeks now? And the same thing inside of prisons, people have been, they already been isolated, but now they're further isolated. Programs are closed. Some states you could just go to the gym and yard. And it's very limited, picture the yard being just a big outside parking lot with no cars and just walking around no trees and no grass or nothing. So that can be pretty nerve-racking after doing that for a long period of time when a person was used to going to the school building or like the prison I went to, they had this theater program called Rehabilitation Through the Arts. And I found that program quite useful because for a whole entire year, I had to learn how to perform theatrical, put on theatrical events on a stage, how to learn how to block, how to put your voice and I wore costumes. And it made me feel like I was a human being and it made so many others feel like the human being. They learned themselves from being in these programs and expressing their emotions and to have that taken away from them at a time like this. And it's like no one to blame. And it's not like the facility is just taken away from us. It's taken away from us in order to keep us safe, but at the same time, it still hurts. You even miss some of the civilians that come in that you usually interact with. So that can be super tough. So people wanna know what it's going to be like when this is all over. Is everyone gonna get inoculated then we can convene with each other? Or is there gonna be a new way of interact with one another? So how that program is interesting. It's an interesting thing I think that you point out that they've kind of shut down programming in order to keep people safe. And that like most of us are staying home or social distancing or many people are. So it's not that that's not understandable but if you really do wanna keep people safe, aren't you also going to then provide them with soap? I mean, if you can't let people go to class, it seems like you can make sure they have soap. So it does seem like the opportunities that are being taken from people are the opportunities that provide the most, access and resource to people on Justice in America, our podcast tomorrow we're having doing an episode with Rodney Spivey Jones who's incarcerated currently at Fishkill Correctional Center in upstate New York. I was there just a few months ago and Bard Prison Initiative, their programming is in Fishkill. You know, this is a life-changing, like you are expressing just life-changing opportunities for people who don't have access to opportunities so often. So while I agree, I mean, and obviously you have so much personal experience with this, while I agree that these programs taking away the ability for people to get more sick is good. I feel like they should be doing more, providing some hand sanitizer if you're not gonna let me do the performing arts program. Feels like those two things could go hand in hand. Absolutely, definitely. And by the way, Rod, I know Rod, he's an amazing guy. He's an amazing guy. Oh, great. Yeah, he's so great. I'm really like, the interview was just incredible and he's really great. And so the other thing I think that people might wonder about that sort of related to this about programming is also visitation, right? We're seeing visitation shut down entirely right now in places where there are alternatives. It's often very, very pricey. Video calling, my brother was incarcerated and when he was, when we had to use security to use video calls, that's, I mean $30 every 10 minutes or something, I mean, really expensive. Phone calls are expensive. Any sort of communication that's not face-to-face and even face-to-face is expensive because it takes you resources to get there and it takes, you know, but like directly money out of your pocket is the visitation options. Could you talk a little bit about what visitation looks like right now? I mean. Visitation is not existing right now. They were already scarce to begin with when people, usually when people get incarcerated, they get sent furthest away in the state away from their family and that would make it harder for the family to travel to visit. And so they're like in prison, just like out here, there's the haps and there's the have nots. The people who would have got visits and in the end to rely on it. And those are the people who are incarcerated who usually thrive the most. You have it together. They don't get a lot of programs. They want to go to college. You know, they feel like they're almost whole. They're not whole all the way but they feel their mental health is pretty stable and to take that away from them. And you know, and once again, it's for a good reason to keep people safe, you know, but still it has that impact on the psyche that's kind of hurtful to people. And I really thought about that as I prepared my next issue of our next issue, the Marshall Project of the news inside because in there's a story that the title is family who cracks together but stays together. And then one woman, you know, her husband was incarcerated and it would do things like eight o'clock. There's a program on TV. I'm gonna watch it at eight and you're gonna watch it at eight. Then we're gonna write each other about it. So we're watching it at the same time. We feel like we're together and it would do cool things. Like during Christmas time, she would take a photograph of the ornament on a Christmas tree and mail it to him and he would put it up on his wall on a Christmas tree that he drew. So they feel like they're connected. So I'm hoping to inspire incarcerated people to do some of those similar things to kind of stay connected. I love that. Yeah. I mean, you know, one of the things we were talking about with Rodney because fish kill is being hit really hard by the virus right now. And when people reached out to him and said, how are you doing? His main concern is his family, right? That's how all of us feel. Our main concern is our family and friends. I think if you're healthy or you're not without worry, you know? And when you're more at risk and you can't see the people in any way, shape or form that, you know, help that you want to protect, I think it just exacerbates so much of the pain and tragedy of the situation. Yes. I love that. I love that. I can't wait to watch that. That's amazing. So the other question we got that I think is really important is what does it look like after the virus? Do we think that visitation will go back to normal? Do we think programming will go back to normal? Do we think soap will finally be something people can normally access? Or do we think that the powers that be will take advantage of the limitations and kind of, you know, put them in place more permanently? Dang. I know. It's very depressing to think about. Yes, it's very depressing. And I just know that there's someone that's gonna try to take advantage of it and try to limit some of these interactions with people. But at the same time, I know there are people who are incarcerated who they see the things that have worked with this or the needs of how important it is to have soap and in writing proposals in order to pitch it to prison administrators to get things changed for the better. And I'm hoping some of those things that change for the better actually occur. And I also hope that, you know, there's some programs that are run by some amazing people. I mentioned RTA, he's also Hudson Lane. There's many programs all over the country. And these people who run the programs, they have a longstanding relationship with the prison system. And I hope that prison officials don't lock them out because of this. And, but a lot of it is gonna be dependent on the healthcare community out here. Will we find a cure or some type of inoculation in order to keep people safe? So it's gonna depend on that. One question we got was about people leaving. Since they're sort of a high percentage of asymptomatic carriers, are people who are leaving correctional facilities being tested or are there any precautions to make sure that they're not taking this back to their families? Well, I mean, it varies by state and it varies by facility. There's something that aren't, but I've heard of one facility where a person is leaving and he's being tested when he's left, when he's leaves and also is making sure that he has to stay quarantined for 14 days in the home that he goes to. Interesting. And Sandy Mullins asked that question and I just wanted to say that that's really good to hear. I hadn't even heard that. Most of what I'm hearing is that there's no, I think in Ohio they've tested almost everybody for the virus and at least a couple of the state facilities, but in general, no, there aren't those precautionary measures. And I think this sort of goes back to what we were talking about at the very beginning, like we talk about wanting to keep people safe, but there are some ways that we could, if you're in a facility where more than half of people have been at least severely exposed to this virus without any cleaning materials, without a face mask, without gloves, if you really want to keep people safe, you test them before they leave that facility and we're not seeing that enough places. Yeah, and that's what we need to see. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I wonder as we're sort of wrapping up here, if you want to talk about what this means more broadly for criminal justice reform and where are the places where we need to sort of take what we're seeing in this moment of illness and apply it to the rest of the criminal justice system in terms of what are the changes that you want to see and what does this sort of say about our criminal justice system in America? Well, first thing, if it comes to that, a lot of people are going to be released because of COVID-19 and if you find that crime doesn't spike, like I mentioned before, then that might be something that, we need to consider as a country, we're locking people up and maybe they don't need to be there because they're not a danger to society as we have thought. I mean, sure, they're going to be outliers. There's going to be some things that happen. It's not going to be 100%, but you don't throw out the baby with the backwater, that sort of thing. But also, we need to think about how prisons are structured. The inability to social distance when something like this happened, so the way facilities are structured probably is going to have to change in the future in order to keep everyone safe. So those are some of the things that we need to take a look at and I hope that people will take a look at and we'll see what happens. Yeah, I think what we think about and we think about how this virus kind of makes clear, makes plain who, I think as you put it earlier, the haves and have nots more broadly, right? We know who the essential workers are. We know who the people who are mostly getting sick are. We know what it means when you actually can't stay home. You can't self isolate. We know that poor people, people without healthcare, people of color, these are the people who are being ravaged by this virus. I think something came out today that said half of New Yorkers know someone who has died from COVID-19, know of someone who has died from COVID-19 and 74% of white people do not know anybody who's died of COVID-19, right? But over 50% of black and Latino people do know someone who has died of COVID-19. It's hitting outer boroughs much harder than it's hitting Manhattan. It's hitting poor zip codes much harder than it's hitting rich zip codes. And we're seeing all of those social functions are exist and then times 10 when you talk about correctional facilities. I mean, this is where the worst parts of American society are just on display constantly, unapologetically. And it is, I hope an opportunity, if there is an opportunity in this, it's to really rethink what it means to lock someone up. Are you okay with sentencing someone to death because that is what you're doing by keeping them in prison right now? In Atlanta where I am just yesterday, a judge said, there are 200 people, I think, in the local jail here in a judge who have been granted bond, but they can't afford bond. And the judge said they're not letting them out, which means you stay in jail, you probably get coronavirus because coronavirus is all you're hitting in jail because you're poor, just because you're poor. That's it. And what are we okay being that kind of society? Is that who we wanna be? That's a good question. I mean, and I think you made a very valid point. This is putting our culture or our country, the worst parts of our country on display for all of the reasons you just mentioned. And I wonder if people are gonna stand up and do something positive about it or people are gonna use it in order to get worse. So we'll see what happens. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Lawrence for joining us. Again, this is Lawrence Bartley. He's the Director of News Inside with The Marshall Project. I'm Josie Duffy-Rice. I am President of the Appeal and Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America. Thank you all so much for joining us and tune in every Tuesday and Thursday for more future tense social distancing socials. Thank you so much, everybody.