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BRENNAN
CENTER
F US C-V
April 16, 2020
Hon. William P. Barr
Attorney General of the United States
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530
Re: Expanding BOP's Response to the Novel Coronavirus, and Helping States
Safely Reduce their Prison Populations
Dear Attorney General Barr:
We write to ask that the Department of Justice (DOJ) take a leadership role in helping the
nation's criminal justice systems adapt to the challenges presented by the novel coronavirus.
America's prisons and jails present unique health dangers,' and are especially vulnerable to the
spread of infectious disease2 - problems that the outbreak of the novel coronavirus throw
into sharp relief. Absent additional interventions, COVID-19 will continue spreading through
incarcerated populations, and our nation's correctional officers and staff, at an alarming rate.4
We thank you for the steps you have taken to respond to this crisis, including expanding the
use of home confinement by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). As you acknowledge, the BOP
has a profound obligation to protect the health and safety of all inmates requires nothing
less.5 Yet more must be done to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus behind bars. Even
if the BOP's recent lockdown slows transmission among people who remain imprisoned in its
facilities, it will also stretch tensions behind bars even further. And, correctional administrators
nationwide face similar pressures.
I Michael Massoglia & Brianna Remster, Linkages Between Incarceration and Health, Public Health Reports 134, no. 1 (2019): 8S-14S,
hit sa e ub.eorndoi (incarceration is associated with worse health for all formerly
incarcerated persons compared with never incarcerated persons).
2 See, e.g., David Cloud, On Lefe Support: Publ Health in the Age of Mass Incarceration, Vera Institute ofJustice, 2014, 12
htp:/wx / r.-/( It - n (noting an example of the rapid spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis behind bars).
See Daniel A. Gross, 'It Spreads Like Wildfire': The Coronavirus Comes to New York's Prisons, The New Yorker, March 24, 2020,
4 Lauren-Brooke Eisen, How Coronavirus Could Affect U.S. Jails and Prisons, Brennan Centerfor]usice, March 13, 2020,
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5 Memorandum from Attorney General William P. Barr to Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons Michael Carvajal, April 3, 2020,
Office of the Attorney General, 1, i
6 The BOP ordered a 14-day lockdown on March 31, 2020. Federal Bureau of Prisons, Bureau of Prisons COVID-19 Action Plan: Phase
Five, March 31, 2020, As similar measures are
Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law
120 Broadway, Suite 1750 New York, NY 10271](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.brennan/exbopn0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)