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Covid-19, Courts, And The 'Realities Of Prison Administration.' Part Ii: The Realities Of Litigation, Chad Flanders
Covid-19, Courts, And The 'Realities Of Prison Administration.' Part Ii: The Realities Of Litigation, Chad Flanders
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Lawsuits challenging prisons and jails for not doing enough to stop the spread of COVID-19 among inmates have faced mixed results in the courts: wins at the district court level are almost always followed by losses (in the form of stays of any orders to improve conditions) at the appeals court level or at the Supreme Court. This short article tries to explain why this is happening, and makes three comparisons between how district courts and appeals courts have analyzed these lawsuits. First, district courts and appeals courts tend to emphasize different facts in their decisions. District courts focus more …
Law, Structural Racism, And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ruqaiijah Yearby, Seema Mohapatra
Law, Structural Racism, And The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ruqaiijah Yearby, Seema Mohapatra
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Racial and ethnic minorities have always been the most impacted by pandemics because of: disparities in exposure to the virus; disparities in susceptibility to contracting the virus; and disparities in treatment. This article explains how structural racism, the ways in which laws are used to advantage the majority and disadvantage racial and ethnic minorities, has caused these disparities. Specifically, this article focuses on how employment, housing, health care, and COVID-19 relief laws have been manipulated to disadvantage racial and ethnic minorities, making minorities more susceptible to COVID-19 infection and death. This article uses Blumenshine’s 2008 framework to outline how structural …