To help correctional officers, health care workers and inmates in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic Jay-Z along with Meek Mill’s criminal justice reform organization is sending nearly 100,000 surgical masks to various correctional facilities around the United States such as Rikers Island jail in New York City and Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
The REFORM Alliance on Friday announced it would send 40,000 masks to the Tennessee Department of Corrections, 5,000 masks to Parchman and 50,000 to Rikers, and another 2,500 to a Rikers medical facility. The organization said correctional facilities have been especially impacted by the global shortage of protective gear.
“It’s a very vulnerable population,” Jessica Jackson, the chief advocacy officer at REFORM told CBS News. “We’re really worried about the number of people coming in and out of the facility, and the fact that the people living there might be sitting ducks during this pandemic.”
