At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, activists and organizers called out to “free them all!”; all the thousands of New Mexicans and asylum seekers locked up in New Mexico’s prisons, jails, and detention centers. Incarcerated folks are a vulnerable population during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cramped living spaces, lack of adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), and poor access to adequate medical care have turned a court’s sentence into a death sentence. According to The Marshall Project (2021), New Mexico has had 2,983 cases and 958 cases among staff in its state prisons. As of April 2021, 28 incarcerated New Mexico residents had died due to COVID-19 (Marshall Project 2021).
Activists called on Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham to take immediate measures to protect folks in the 11 NM correctional facilities and grant release to inmates in the four NM federal facilities (Colton, 2020). States like California and New Jersey issued executive orders and passed legislation providing pathways to crowd reduction and the release of specific individuals. We can do more for incarcerated people while taking important steps in the right direction.
Two main ways states have reduced incarcerated populations are releases and slowing down intakes. State legislation, executive orders, governor commutations, correction department policy, parole boards, and court orders introduced prison releases (PPI, 2021). New Mexico employed executive orders to commute sentences of specific individuals.
On April 6th, citing her authority as Governor to grant “reprieves and pardons,” Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham published Executive Order 2020-021 (EO) directing the New Mexico Corrections Department to identify potential inmates for release. Individuals released would be on parole until the end of their current term of imprisonment. The EO directed the Secretary of the Corrections Department, Alisha Tafoya Lucero, to compile a list of incarcerated persons meeting the following criteria:
The release date is no more than 30 days away; parole plan in place
Does not have a DWI felony sentence
Is not a sex offender
Is not sentenced for domestic abuse
Is not serving a sentence for assault on a peace officer
Is not serving any enhanced term pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 31-18-16 related to firearms
The order goes on to state “that all persons who meet the criteria above, as determined by the Secretary, receive a gubernatorial commutation of the remainder of their sentences of imprisonment” (State of NM, 2020).
The NM Legislative Finance Committee released their performance report card for the Corrections Department for FY 20; it reported that New Mexico released 76 individuals as a direct result of the EO (NM Legislative Finance Committee, 2021). According to the Public Information Officer at NMCD, NM state corrections facilities released 478 people. We request public release of this information publicly and regularly.