The sheriff of a county on Long Island applauded the New York Supreme Court’s decision to bar the release of more than 100 inmates out of concern they might contract the coronavirus.
“These men and women will then be returned back to the street without the proper health to really, one, monitor them and then, two, assist them in the issues that they’re facing,” Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr. said Wednesday on Fox News.
Civil liberties groups had sued prisons in New York City last week, arguing inmates in jails were in greater danger of contracting the virus in custody rather than in public.
Toulon disagrees.
“If you put them out into the street, especially with the issues, the pandemic issues that we’re currently facing, they will then have an opportunity to contract the virus,” he said.
New York City is the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in America, with 10,000 New Yorkers dying from the virus.
