This post is authored by Ryan Brij Stewart, the WVCBP’s 2020 Summer Research Associate with the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium in Poverty. He studies Government and Philosophy at Hamilton College.
With the emergence of COVID-19 over the past several months, various systems of criminal justice in West Virginia have been forced to adjust their practices in order to reduce the spread of the disease. Previous analysis has shown a reduction in the prison and jail system populations in West Virginia. New evidence out of Charleston, West Virginia shows that there has been a large reduction in arrest rates as well.