Essential Readings
This is not an exhaustive list; rather, it focuses on some of the themes we will be covering throughout the symposium.
Prisons, Disease, and Medicine
Ashley Rubin, Prisons and jails are coronavirus epicenters – but they were once designed to prevent disease outbreaks, The Conversation, April 15, 2020
Misha Lepetic, Foucault’s Plague, 3 Quarks Daily, March 4, 2013
Margo Schlanger, Plata v. Brown and Realignment: Jails, Prisons, Courts, and Politics, Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review 48(1) 2013: 165-215.
Osagie Obasogie, Prisoners as Human Subjects: A Closer Look at the Institute of Medicine’s Recommendations to Loosen Current Restrictions on Using Prisoners in Scientific Research, Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties 6(1) 2010: 41.
COVID-19 and Prisons
Brendan Saloner, Kalind Parish, Julie A. Ward, Grace DiLaura, Sharon Dolovich, COVID-19 Cases and Deaths in Federal and State Prisons, JAMA, July 8, 2020
Hadar Aviram, Triggers and Vulnerabilities: Why California Prisons Are So Vulnerable to COVID-19, and What to Do About It, Tropics of Meta, July 3, 2020
Hadar Aviram, California’s COVID-19 Prison Disaster and the Trap of Palatable Reform, BOOM California, August 10, 2020
Sharon Dolovich, Mass Incarceration, Meet COVID-19, University of Chicago Law Review Online, Nov. 2020
Matthew J. Akiyama, M.D., Anne C. Spaulding, M.D., and Josiah D. Rich, M.D., Flattening the Curve for Incarcerated Populations — Covid-19 in Jails and Prisons, The New England Journal of Medicine, May 2020
Oluwadamilola T. Oladeru, Nguyen-Toan Tran, Tala Al-Rousan, Brie Williams & Nickolas Zaller, A Call to Protect Patients, Correctional Staff and Healthcare Professionals in Jails and Prisons during the COVID-19 Pandemic, Health and Justice, July 2, 2020
Noel Vest, Oshea Johnson, Kathryn Nowotny & Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, Prison Population Reductions and COVID-19: A Latent Profile Analysis Synthesizing Recent Evidence From the Texas State Prison System, Journal of Urban Health, December 2020
San Quentin
Megan Cassidy and Jason Fagone, 200 Chino inmates transferred to San Quentin, Corcoran. Why weren’t they tested first? San Francisco Chronicle, June 8, 2020
AMEND SF and UC Berkeley, Urgent Memo – COVID-19 Outbreak: San Quentin Prison, June 15, 2020
Megan Cassidy, San Quentin officials ignored coronavirus guidance from top Marin County health officer, letter says, San Francisco Chronicle, August 11, 2020
Al Jazeera Front Lines, Pandemic in Prison: The San Quentin Outbreak, October 28, 2020
In re Von Staich on Habeas Corpus, A160122, California Court of Appeal for the First District, October 20, 2020
Solutions and Policies
Hadar Aviram, Gov. Newsom’s Release Plan Is Not Enough, San Francisco Chronicle, July 10, 2020
James King and Danica Rodarmel, Gov. Newsom must release more people from prisons to protect Californians and save lives, The Sacramento Bee, July 11, 2020
Jason Fagone, California could cut its prison population in half and free 50,000 people. Amid pandemic, will the state act? San Francisco Chronicle, August 16, 2020
Ruth Wilson Gilmore in conversation with Naomi Murakawa, Haymarket Books, April 17, 2020
Amina Azhar-Graham & Carina Gallo, Reimagining public defense advocacy in times of Covid-19: lessons from a task force, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 2020
Reproductive Justice, Women and Gender in CA Prisons
Sulipa Jindia, Belly of the Beast: California’s dark history of forced sterilizations, The Guardian, June 30, 2020
Jason Fagone, Women’s prison journal: State inmate’s daily diary during pandemic, San Francisco Chronicle, June 14, 2020
Valerie Jenness, Transgender Prisoners in America, September 5, 2016
AJ Rio-Glick, COVID-19 Adds to Challenges for Trans People in California’s Prisons, Vera Institute of Justice Blog, July 7, 2020
COVID-19 in Immigration Detention Facilities
COVID-19 in Jails, Prisons, and Immigration Detention Centers: A Q&A with Chris Beyrer, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, September 15, 2020
American Bar Foundation, Impact of COVID-19 on the Immigration System
Carmen Molina Acosta, Psychological Torture: ICE Responds to COVID-19 with Solitary Confinement, The Intercept, August 24, 2020
Vaccination and Incarcerated Populations
Hadar Aviram, Prisons should be a priority for COVID vaccine, San Francisco Chronicle, December 2020