Prison Inmates Are Now Trying To Catch Coronavirus On Purpose So They Can Be Released Early
The Los Angeles County jail inmates had one goal in mind: get infected with the novel coronavirus so they could be released from custody. And they were going to do it together.
One by one last month, groups of inmates inside the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic, Calif., drank from the same hot-water bottle and sniffed out of one face mask before passing it to the next guy for his turn, according to surveillance footage released Monday by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department...
Not too long ago I blogged about people having coronavirus parties so that they could get infected, now this. In that scenario, I thought normal people in the outside world getting together trying to get coronavirus was dumb. They wanted to build an immunity to COVID-19, I get it, but at the same time making yourself sick on purpose - regardless of the illness - does not seem ideal.
However, if you are an inmate in jail, catching the coronavirus on purpose makes a little more sense. You're already locked up, no place to go, you might as well take your chances. Especially if there's a chance you might get out of jail early.
The county — with 357 positive tests among inmates and an infection total that has more than tripled since the end of April — had previously released some inmates in response to concerns regarding the pandemic.
Based on what I have seen in several television shows and movies, word spreads pretty fast in prison. So you can only imagine that once all of the inmates heard that people were getting let out early on account of testing positive for coronavirus that they would all try and get it. A literal get out of jail free card? Yeah, I'd risk it.
The only thing is, if one prisoner was gonna do it, all of them were. You can't just be letting out all of the inmates. What happens then?
“It’s sad to think that someone deliberately tried to expose themselves to covid-19,” Villanueva said at the Monday news conference. “Somehow there was some mistaken belief among the inmate population that if they tested positive that there was a way to force our hand and somehow release more inmates out of our jail environment — and that’s not going to happen.”
Ah jeez.
Not only are they just blatantly not gonna release them, but they are effectively turning these jails into a fucking coronavirus hotbed. All thanks to a couple of assholes who thought that coronavirus would get rid of all of their problems and set them free. Big egg on their face. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose.
Now they're all just sick and in jail. It sucks being sick in the normal world, let alone being confined to a small space with an extreme lack of Price Is Right re-runs to watch. Imagine just sitting there all day with nothing to do except being sick. Absolutely terrible way to spend a week or two in my opinion. I couldn't think of anything I'd want to do less.
How about being another inmate who didn't partake in this passing of the water bottle. They must be furious that A) they weren't invited to the plot to pretty much escape jail and B) they now have to worry about getting coronavirus everywhere they go within the jail. Not the best when you've effectively turned the entire jail population against you. Then again, had they gotten the invite, those other prisoners would've done the same thing if it meant there was a chance of getting out early.
To say this backfired would be an understatement. All of the guys who were sipping on that bottle are probably gonna get in big-time trouble, on top of what they already might be in there for.