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Law

Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead On His Jail's Pandemic Response

A photo of the Durham County Jail: a large silver building.
Laura Candler/WUNC
The Durham County Jail

COVID-19 is spreading more quickly throughout North Carolina's population: public health metrics in the last week have some experts worried the state is heading in the wrong direction. Research shows the virus spreads more quickly indoors and when people have prolonged close contact with one another — something that's almost unavoidable in places like jails and prisons. 

Host Frank Stasio talks to Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead about how the Durham County Detention Facility is adapting its policies to protect its inmates. Felicia Arriaga joins the conversation to talk about how other sheriffs are responding to the pandemic. She is an assistant professor of sociology at Appalachian State University who's been collecting data on jails' responses to COVID-19.
 

Amanda Magnus is the executive producer of Embodied, a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships and health. She has also worked on other WUNC shows including Tested and CREEP.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
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