Advancement Project National Office and our partners in justice, Community Justice Project Miami, Civil Rights Corps, and Dream Defenders have taken legal action to protect the rights of community members in Miami jails. We filed a lawsuit against the Miami Department of Corrections arguing that Miami's Metro West Detention Center is risking the lives of everyone inside because of their deliberate indifference illustrated by their failure to respond to the threat of COVID-19. 

If we win, Miami residents in jail will be #FreeAndSafe. This litigation, the most recent legal action taken by Advancement Project following our work in St. Louis last week, will help people who are at elevated risk for contracting the coronavirus; who are detained on misdemeanors or on low-level drug offenses; and who are being detained on warrants, parole, or probation violation holds.

Today, we are announcing our campaign to be #FreeAndSafe from COVID-19!

Visit www.freeandsafenow.org to learn how you can call your local public officials (sheriff's offices, state's attorneys, governors, etc.) and demand that they take action before it's too late! We are joining forces with partners and allies like Ben & Jerry's who are urging residents in Detroit, East Baton Rouge, St. Louis and Miami to take action here. Not in these areas? You can still help by posting a video using #FreeAndSafe, tagging your policy makers, and sharing our social media graphics this week so community members in jail can safely quarantine! 

In this social moment, we are working to protect people locked in jails and prisons, who are disproportionately Black and Brown, and who are at greatest risk during the pandemic. Most of the 670,000 people in our nation's jails right now have not been convicted. Many people have been taken away from their families simply because they could not afford their cash bail. 

During pandemics, jails are ticking time bombs: people are jailed in cramped quarters, cannot practice social distancing and don't have regular access to soap or adequate healthcare. Jails and prisons fail to provide sufficient hand soap and alcohol-based sanitizers to the people detained in and working in these settings. Once inside this perfect breeding ground, the virus will rapidly spread, leading to countless illnesses and deaths both in and out of the facility.

We need your help to pressure local and state governments to do the right thing and release people from jails and prisons, allowing them to safely quarantine and social distance in their homes.

Global public health experts, medical professionals, and some public defenders' offices urge state and local governments to release as many people as possible to avoid the spread of COVID-19. These experts know that jails are the perfect breeding ground for the coronavirus, that jails lack the health care required to stop its spread, and that keeping people in jail during the pandemic threatens everyone's safety, not just those who are locked inside. They urge local and state governments to protect public health by letting them go.

You can do the same by calling on your state government officials to release people today. Share #FreeThemAll until we're all #FreeAndSafe on your social platforms, and spread the word before jails and prisons spread the virus.

We filed a similar case with our partners St. Louis last week and plan to file similar cases in Detroit and Louisiana. Your support will allow us to be aggressive in real time to get people out of jails and lessen their risk of contracting COVID-19: www.advancementproject.org/donate/.