This New York Times headline captures the dilemma.

Jails are Petri dishes.

Some states have taken steps on their own to mitigate the risks.

Late Friday, Attorney General Bar called for the transfer of inmates most vulnerable to home confinement, beginning in federal fillies in Ohio, Connecticut and Louisiana, where five inmates have already died from the virus.

And now there are new cries for help from one of the nation's most overcrowded state prison systems.

ABC News has obtained exclusive video from inside the Alabama prisons.

Take a look.

It's gonna be a mass grave site, Cos this is a stupid cried of super crowded not, as you see before walking down out, and they got a turn.

See, there are two small.

It is way, way too small.

These are to be right beside you, and this is the space that's hot.

That's hot.

Clothe people that they should be let go due to clothe world.

Can this man who shrinks a berry outdated?

We cannot wash our hands simultaneously at the same time.

You know my being outside world is Hill.

You help for the old crowded help for Senate clear purposes help for, ah, release mechanism.

We mean to release some of these people.

We mean Jill Dramatic video.

There we reached out to the Alabama Department of Corrections.

They acknowledged that current conditions mean they can't enforce social distancing, adding that the department is working to do everything in our power to mitigate the spread of the virus.

As of Friday, no Alabama Prisoner had tested positive.

A couple of days have prison workers have confirmed positive.

And we're joined now by Dr Homer Venter's president, community oriented Correction.

Health Service's former chief medical officer for the New York City jail system to pick a Sam, a former inmate who spent three years in prison for nonviolent drug offense.

Now criminal justice reform advocate, co founder of New Yorkers United for Justice and Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Option, he oversees five facilities in Bristol County, Massachusetts.

Thank you all for joining us this morning.

And Dr Vendors let me just begin with you just give us a sense of the scope of this public health crisis in Americans prisons, right now.

Sure, in good morning.

We have 5000 county jails and state and federal prisons, and probably another 2000 juvenile detention centers and ice detention centers.

These places are almost perfectly designed and run in a way to promote the spread of this virus throughout these institutions, affecting not only people who are held there but the staff we saw in New York City.

In just a couple of weeks, we went from two cases to 38 cases to now over 500 cases split evenly between staff and detain people.

And so the danger here is that we're not on Lee really going to see the explosion of cases among people who were detained and the people who work there.

This is going to drive the entire epidemic her for this nation up Just when we're trying to flatten.

And Topeka, Sam, you've lived inside some of those facilities.

Give us a sense of how difficult it is.

We saw some of it in that video right there to accomplish social distancing inside these prisons.

Absolutely.

George, there's no such thing.

Your social distancing inside of persons, as you saw on the conditions are no different than when I was incarcerated in five different prisons around this country, in federal prison and county jails.

That video was heartbreaking.

You said it best first, that this is a public health issue.

Mass incarceration is a public health issue, and now that this outbreak happened, I'm happy that we're taking a look at prisons in a different way and the people that are actually in them.

Unfortunately, as you see, there is no way to properly be six feet apart.

There's no way so properly wash your hands.

There's not enough so they can't use hand sanitizer because of alcohol products that are in them in their considered contraband.

You have people that was an open door, but where I wasa there were cells, and in those cells we will act in, sometimes up to 21 hours a day.

I just received a call from Michelle West, who's in federal prison, and she actually is in Dublin, California, where they're locking the women in for five days out of seven days, so they're only allowed out of their cell for two days a week, Tuesdays and Fridays for 15 minutes a day.

To take showers make cold calls, we'll just get some fresh air.

This has to stop.

We have to begin to release our people for prison because not only is it the incarcerated population that's impacted, it's the officers, is the chaplain's.

It's the workers who come home back into the community and then spread the disease in the further within our community into their home Children and sheriff haunting.

I think the question is, how do you balance those very real public health and safety concerns against the safety risks of releasing too many prisoners?

Well, one of George, that's a great point.

Look, it's all about your protocols in the prisons and how well your staff are prepared.

We've been death dealing with H one n one.

Prior to this stars all those viruses.

It's all about the control you have in your prisons.

Now, if you let people out into the streets.

80% of our population have drug related issues.

They have compromised immune systems.

So you let him out into the community.

There are higher risk, become carriers.

They're going to start feeding their addiction.

They have no support to get medications.

They're going thio have no rehabilitative programs out there And they're gonna be wandering into stores of, you know, under the influence of drugs.

Not to mention the fact that when they overdose, if some of them do you have the emergency medical people having to respond on.

Then we worried about ingesting a particle of fentanyl.

Never mind the exposure to Covert 19 which will happen.

The other thing is, these people have nowhere to go.

You know, many of them were gonna go stay in apartments with 34 sometimes five families in a five room apartment.

I can't think of anything more dangerous If we're talking about distancing.

I can't think of anything that would be more distancing than have the prisoners in the jails protecting the people on the outside from adding Maur carriers and Maur exposure.

We have the protocols in place.

We have no covert 19 people.

We've been at this for a month.

Many of the most of the prisons, I think.

Except for one facility in the state and Essex County.

I Excuse me.

Middlesex County had two prisoners.

Other than that, there are no prisoners a SW far as we know in our county systems, this is such a difficult dilemma.

I wish we had more time.

Thio.

Look at it today.

We will definitely revisit it.

But thank you all for your time this morning.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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