Fayette County jail releases 48 nonviolent inmates to avoid spread of coronavirus
The Fayette County District Court has agreed to release 48 low-risk, nonviolent offenders to decrease the spread of COVID-19 among other inmates and jail staff, Lexington city officials said Wednesday.
Many of the inmates who have been released are over the age of 60 with pre-existing health conditions. All were in jail for misdemeanor offenses, such as failure to pay fines, disorderly conduct and failure to appear in court. Most had less than 45 days left on their sentences, city officials said.
The city worked with Fayette County Attorney Larry Roberts and the Fayette District judges to determine who should be released.
The releases started Friday and concluded Wednesday.
The jail population is now at 1,102 inmates, down from a high of, such as 1,565.
“It’s important to us to make the jail as safe as we can,” said Mayor Linda Gorton. “One obvious step was to selectively reduce the number of inmates.”
Gorton closed the jail to all visitors on March 10.
Because social distancing isn’t possible in jails and prisons, an outbreak of COVID-19 could be extremely dangerous.
Earlier this month, Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice John Minton Jr. urged state court officials to thin populations of jail inmates immediately. But few had taken steps to do so last week.
“Much like nursing homes, jails are susceptible to worse-case scenarios due to the close proximity of people and the number of pre-existing conditions,” Minton wrote in an email to state court judges and clerks.
