As COVID spread throughout Florida, advocates in Miami-Dade pushed to have low-level offenders released from jails, fearing an outbreak could amount to a death sentence.
Prosecutors and judges heeded the warnings and arranged for the release of hundreds of inmates.
Since that time, the jail population is back up, and coincided with dozens of cases among corrections officers and inmates. The county reported that 84 employees were at home and 20 inmates were in isolation after testing positive for the virus.
Miami-Dade Corrections remains committed to implementing proactive measures to help protect the health and well-being of MDCR staff, medical personnel, and inmates in our custody. The corrections department has been holding incoming arrestees for three days and testing them for COVID before mixing them in with the general population.
Vaccines are becoming available in Florida, but Gov. Ron DeSantis has not clearly stated when jail populations will be prioritized.
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