Lockups and lockdowns

City correction officers are testing positive for COVID-19; inmates with symptoms have been isolated. A prison worker at Sing Sing in Westchester County is confirmed to have the virus. Jails and prisons have long been places where disease spreads freely, and where health-care resources are strained even under the best of circumstances.

These are not the best circumstances. What this crisis requires: swiftly segregating populations with symptoms. Ensuring that guards possibly infected go home and stay. Providing ample access to protective equipment to all staff. The mayor’s office of criminal justice has requested district attorney recommendations of inmates worthy of early release in the current crisis: sick prisoners, those with sentences of less than 90 days or those held for under $10,000 bail.

Similarly, Gov. Cuomo should consider more clemencies for older inmates. We don’t suggest en masse release as in Iran, but targeted action to preemptively prevent problems from metastasizing.

The governor, more than ably managing many other moving pieces in this crisis, must understand that if the virus spreads to elderly inmates and those with underlying health conditions, they will be in need of urgent medical care. Not even convicted felons can be deprived of that; the Supreme Court has called it akin to cruel and unusual punishment.

The wiser course is to free some of the nearly 10,000 older adults who present no risk to public safety — provided they have somewhere to return to on the outside.