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Washington has been releasing prisoners because of a coronavirus outbreak at the Monroe Detention Center. But there’s an organization that thinks this is not being done the right way. Jeff Clayton is the executive director of the , and joined Seattle’s Morning News to discuss why he feels Washington state has been too lax in its approach.

“Well, I wouldn’t do what Washington state’s doing,” Clayton said. “You’ve got 12 confirmed cases of as of Friday in the state Department of Corrections facilities; we’re going to release 1,100 inmates, we’re going to call them non-violent, even though as I look at it there were 71 firearms offenses in the first batch of commutations.”

“What I would have done is either employed the intermediate sentencing review board or some administrative authority to actually look at these guys and see who they are … to start letting people out is ridiculous, particularly when you only have 12 cases, 11 of which come from one single facility of the state of Washington,” he said.

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Clayton believes this bad situation becomes worse when considering the current economic and housing conditions, which are doubly unfavorable to released prisoners looking to go straight.

“When we release these people, the two things that drive new crimes are lack of housing and lack of employment, and this is a really hard time to get housing and employment, right? So I’m not sure this is going to help containment whatsoever,” Clayton said.

Furthermore, he said it seems that the victims of the crimes are not being consulted about the potential releases and seem to have no way to challenge them.

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“As far as I know, there was no court proceeding. These are administrative orders from the Department of Corrections flowing from the governor’s authority to declare an emergency,” he said.

“To put out in the newspapers in Washington State that these are non-violent cases is ridiculous. Look at the list. There’s burglaries, 71 firearms offenses on the commutation list, stolen cars, hit and runs … that’s what we’re talking about here, and that is 1,100 offenders that are going to run wild.”

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