COVID-19 SPECIAL EDITION | SOCIAL IMPACT LIVE: Decarceration and Public Health

In the throes of COVID-19, a group of individual scholars, researchers, and educators from across Columbia University’s schools and disciplines have signed a letter to Governor Cuomo urging him to release elderly and infirm people and other groups of readily releasable people from New York State prisons to avoid the spread of the novel coronavirus to incarcerated people and prison staff. In this episode of Social Impact LIVE, host Richard Hara (bio) sits down with Cameron Rasmussen (bio), MSW’13, of Columbia’s Center for Justice along with two representatives from the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign, Mark Shervington (bio) and Melissa Tanis (bio), MSW’19, all of whom are centrally involved in this campaign. They will talk about the urgent need to reduce prison populations and improve conditions in U.S. prisons—not only for the sake of the health of prisoners and prison employees in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, but as part of the overall plan to control the spread of the virus to all Americans.

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