Lawmakers are joining prisoners' advocates who are alarmed by the government's response to the growing coronavirus crisis behind bars.
The spreading specter of the coronavirus is shaking Latin America’s notoriously overcrowded, unruly prisons.But at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal lockup in New York City housing 1,700 inmates, there were only nine nasal swab test kits late last month, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of hundreds of inmates there. Just one inmate has been confirmed with coronavirus there, according to Bureau of Prisons statistics.
, inmate Guillermo Zegarra-Martinez told his attorney in an email that his cellmate tested positive for the coronavirus and was put in isolation for more than two weeks. Advocates and even prison guards have been calling for reforms to head off outbreaks in a prison system plagued for years by violence, misconduct and staffing shortages. Nearly 350 staff members have tested positive.Sign up for the latest news, best stories and what they mean for you, plus answers to your questions.Staff are sent around the country to pick up shifts, and union officials say the shortages are still so severe that officers are sometimes working 24 hours straight.
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