Keeping us COVID-19 Safe and Free
In partnership with Texas Appleseed. For more information you may also email Texas Appleseed at info@texasappleseed.net.
Call on District Attorney Margaret Moore and County Attorney David Escamilla to take decisive action to end mass incarceration and reduce the threat of a coronavirus outbreak in the Travis County jail.
Call District Attorney Margaret Moore via her Campaign Headquarters (she is in a tight runoff): (512) 571-3613
Call County Attorney David Escamilla: (512) 854-9415
Because Travis County is testing for COVID-19 at a very low rate, and is not submitting any reports to the Texas Commission on jail standards, no one knows the degree of trouble in our jail. Five jail staff have tested positive, but very few inmates have been tested. This epidemic is far from over and the best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the jail is to keep as many people as possible out of there.
COVID-19 has already spread wildly through Texas’ jails and prisons, and both inmates and staff are dying. 7 of the 10 biggest clusters of infections in the US are in jails or prisons.
Due to the lack of space and sanitation, coronavirus is unstoppable once it takes hold behind bars. Texas prisons have locked down and quarantined tens of thousands of people, and haven’t been able to stop the spread. With more than 2,000 positive cases and dozens of deaths under investigation, the state prison system has stopped taking new people from the county jails. If the local jails don’t reduce the number of people held unnecessarily, they become the next hot-spot.
Prosecutors have the most power to determine who is incarcerated and for how long, and therefore have a responsibility to reduce incarceration in this moment and prevent needless death. We are calling on Moore and Escamilla to:
