Public health faculty urge criminal justice response

Faculty at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, joined by several peers at the Tulane School of Medicine, shared an open letter to the New Orleans Criminal Justice Community urging them to reduce the jail population immediately to avoid widespread infection by COVID-19.

We urgently request that the members of the New Orleans Criminal Justice Community work to reduce the population of the jail immediately, before widespread infection takes hold in the jail, and continue to reduce the number of intakes into the Orleans Justice Center over the longer course of the crisis. Once confirmed COVID-19 cases are identified inside the jail it will likely be too late to prevent a large epidemic in the jail population, and anyone working or residing there at that time will be at high risk of suffering from COVID-19.

Continue reading the Open Letter to the New Orleans Criminal Justice Community.