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The correctional complex on State Road in Philadelphia. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
In the middle of an outbreak of COVID-19 inside city jails, the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund hopes to free nearly 30 incarcerated people on Saturday.
The nonprofit has brought home 325 people since the start of the pandemic, but never more than a few at a time. Cara Tratner, an organizer with the bail fund, said conditions on State Road, the site of the city’s jail compound in Northeast Philadelphia, necessitated a mass bailout.
“This is the most dire circumstances we’ve seen yet,” said Tratner.
As of Friday morning, 197 incarcerated people were actively infected with COVID-19, according to the city. More than 90% of them are classified as asymptomatic.
One in an occasional series about Philadelphia’s unchecked gun violence. Every trip outside the house for Jackee Nichols brings a new reminder of the pain. Nichols is from a part of South Philadelphia that has been embroiled in a shooting conflict for as long as anyone can remember. In October 2018, that violence claimed her 15-year-old grandson. Police believe he was gunned down for living on the wrong block but, like most shootings in Philadelphia, no one has been charged in the crime. Now Nichols faces the daily torment of living among the people she suspects killed her grandson, Rasul Benson, leaving trauma to resurface in unexpected moments.