COVID-19 has officially entered the United States prison system. Prisoners and prison employees have tested positive for the coronavirus in Pennsylvania and Washington , and a police investigator in New York died from the virus on Sunday, according to the New York City Department of Corrections.

Public health officials have warned of the dangers of the coronavirus spreading in prisons and jails after more than 500 prisoners were infected in China on the onset of the outbreak last month, and now, correctional facilities in the U.S. are faced with the exact circumstances for which they are openly unprepared .

A major source of concern is the fastest-growing prison population in the United States: people over the age of 55. There are currently nearly 125,000 prisoners in this age group a number that has quadrupled in the last two decades. Of those prisoners, more than 26,000 are also over the age of 65. And many of them are in crowded facilities where its nearly impossible to practice the social distancing experts say is vital to slow the spread of the virus.

Given the mortal threat to many of these elderly prisoners, an idea that may have seemed radical only weeks ago is now being considered: Just release them.

Compassionate release the release of prisoners who have developed extraordinary and compelling reasons to be released before theyve formally served their time happens already, but its rare. Typically, compassionate release is granted in cases of terminal illness or old age, but exceptionally few cases just 6% are actually approved.

Experts say the doors need to be opened, and now, to avoid mass death inside U.S. prisons and jails.

We have an aging, highly susceptible population that were keeping incarcerated, Dr. Josiah Rich, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Brown University in Rhode Island, told HuffPost. Rich works in the Rhode Island correctional system, researching infectious disease and providing medical care for HIV-positive inmates and inmates with addiction issues.

Biological age is one thing, he said, but these are people who have had a lot of struggles. They have the burden of disease of a population thats about 10 years older Not only are they aging, and thats a risk factor, but other diseases put them at a higher risk of disease outcomes. Its a very unhealthy population.

It is precisely this demographic of older and immunocompromised people who are most likely to die of COVID-19.

Because of this, Rich believes that Iran, which released nearly 54,000 incarcerated people earlier this month, had the right idea.

Its very clear that the people that are sick and older are at the lowest risk of trouble when they get out if they have enough support, he said. We have an opportunity to get a lot of these people out of prisons.

Judges in Ohio are already taking steps to make this happen. The Cuyahoga County Court held a special hearing on Saturday morning to decide how to best move forward with guilty pleas, and whether to release the most vulnerable (and least dangerous) inmates.

A Growing Geriatric Prison Population

In 1993, there were 26,300 prisoners over the age of 55, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics . By 2013, there were over 130,000.

Thats an increase of 400%.

This tremendous spike in older and elderly prisoners is the result of harsh sentencing laws passed in the 1990s. Mandatory minimums have resulted in decadeslong sentences and overcrowding in Americas jails and prisons.

During a public health crisis, mandatory minimums can be a death sentence for that fast-growing population of prisoners over the age of 55. In fact, between the years of 2001 and 2007 alone, nearly 8,500 people over the age of 55 died behind bars .

Now, when the best way to combat the spread of infectious disease is through preventive health care measures, good hygiene and social distancing all tough thing to achieve in an overcrowded prison advocates are concerned that correctional departments wont act fast enough to halt the spread of COVID-19 among the most vulnerable prison population.

Compassionate Release And COVID-19

Requesting and securing compassionate release is normally a monthslong process, at the very least.

Prisoners and their families are often unaware that this is an option in the first place, and when they do inquire about the process, they are often met with walls of ignorance or silence or hostility and unkindness, said Mary Price, the general counsel of FAMM, a criminal justice reform organization.

Before the First Step Act passed in 2018, compassionate release functioned through the Federal Bureau of Prisons a toxic set of circumstances, according to Price. But the First Step Act changed the process by which incarcerated people can request compassionate release, namely by allowing prisoners to file their own motions directly to their district courts.