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2022 Neb. L. Rev. Bulletin 1 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/nelrvbu2022 and id is 1 raw text is: RACE, PUBLIC HEALTH, AND THE EPIDEMIC OF INCARCERATION Thalia Gonzdlez & Emma Kaeser* The devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on people incarcerated in the United States' have generated urgent calls to action to address carceral policies as a community health crisis.2 To mitigate COVID-19 health risks posed by penal institutions,3 legal scholars and advocates have sought legal interventions including early release of certain individuals,4 reform of sentencing laws,5 and judicially enforced safety measures inside carceral facilities.6 In line with a broader antiracist health equity movement,7 this discourse and action recognizes racism and white supremacy as a root cause of mass incarceration and a driver of racialized COVID-19 health disparities.8 Awareness that mass incarceration constitutes a racialized, health-harming system that necessitates new legal responses is an important step toward promoting health equity. However, a singular focus on legal interventions aimed at addressing COVID-19 characterizes the problem too narrowly. * Authors are listed in alphabetical order to denote equal contributions to the essay. Thalia Gonzilez is a senior scholar, Georgetown University Law Center; professor, Occidental College. Emma Kaeser holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School. We wish to acknowledge Emma Kaikilani Burrows and Cassiopeia Land for their invaluable research in preparation of this Essay. We also wish to thank Alexis Etow for her feedback on this Essay. 1 See KEVIN T. SCHNEPEL ET AL., COUNCIL ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, COVID-19 TESTING IN STATE PRISONS 3-4 (2021); Gregory Hooks & Wendy Sawyer, Mass Incarceration, COVID-19, and Community Spread, PRISON POL'Y INITIATIVE (Dec. 2020), https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/covidspread.html. 2 See, e.g., Neha Jain, Pandemics as Rights-Generators, 114 AM. J. INT'L L. 677 (2020); Laura Cohen, Incarcerated Youth and COVID-19: Notes from the Field, 72 RUTGERS L. REV. 1475 (2020). 3 See, e.g., Sharon Dolovich, Mass Incarceration, Meet COVID-19, U. CHI. L. REV. ONLINE 8-11 (2020). a Christine Scott-Hayward, Correctional and Sentencing Law Commentary Compassionate Release, The First Step Act, and COVID-19, 57 CRIM. L. BULL. 89 (2021); Camila Strassle & Benjamin Berkman, Prisons and Pandemics, 57 SAN DIEGO L. REV. 1083 (2020). 5 Kristin Nelson & Jeanne Segil, The Pandemic as a Portal: Reimaging Crime and Punishment in Colorado in the Wake of COVID-19, 98 DENV. L. REV. 337, 413 (2021); Cohen, supra note 2, at 1482. 6 Marsha Levick, No Exit: How Litigation Failed Incarcerated Youth During the COVID-19 Pandemic, 93 TEMPLE L. REV. 489, 508-09 (2021). ? See Thalia Gonzalez et al., An Antiracist Health Equity Agenda for Education, J.L. MED. & ETHICS (forthcoming 2022) (tracing and naming the current antiracist health equity movement). 8 See, e.g., Mary Crossley, Prisons, Nursing Homes, and Medicaid: A COVID-19 Case Study in Health Injustice, 30 ANNALS HEALTH L. 101 (2021); Cohen, supra note 2; Dolovich, supra note 3. 1

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