The Legal Aid Society, on the fifth anniversary of the U.S. government declaring the COVID-19 pandemic a public health emergency, released a report today examining the response of New York’s criminal legal system to the public health crisis.

The report focuses on the failure of New York City and State agencies to follow public health experts’ guidance to reduce the populations of city jails and state prisons, leading to the dangerous, rapid spread of COVID-19 among people living and working in these facilities, and the majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods that were home to many of them.

The report outlines several actions city and state officials can take to ensure they are better prepared for the next public health crisis, including issuing guidance to police to reduce arrests for minor offenses, passing legislation to expand parole opportunities and amending statutes to allow greater access to medical parole.

“All New Yorkers, regardless of incarceration status, are entitled to robust protections from city and state agencies against harm from infectious diseases like COVID-19,” said Alex Lesman, an attorney with Legal Aid’s Special Litigation Unit and primary author of the report. “By failing to assertively mitigate the risk the pandemic posed to people in the criminal legal system, city and state officials endangered the health and wellbeing of all New Yorkers.”

“This report serves as a record of these failures, as well as a guide to ensure that this aspect of pandemic response is not mishandled again, “Lesman continued. “Our city and state leaders must take action now to enact policies and legislation that will protect all New Yorkers in the event of another public health crisis, as well as reflect on the missed opportunities in 2020 and 2021 to heed guidance from experts and rapidly decarcerate prisons and jails.”

Read the full report here.