Welcome back to the Politics of Prosecution Podcast! This podcast examines the interaction between politics, broadly defined, and criminal prosecution on the local, state and federal levels. Our goal is to produce a variety of shows using different media. The podcast’s first series is created and produced by students in High Point University’s Honors Program. They will look at a variety of issues raised by ongoing events.

The twentieth episode of the first series discussed the prosecution of mask wearing and how politics come into play with prosecutorial decisions. We began by discussing COVID-19 this year and its implications, then the laws and orders that were put into place in order to reduce COVID-19 spread. We then discussed if the government should be allowed to make people wear masks, the differences in state laws for COVID, how politics come into play with these decisions, and if there are any correlations between political perspectives and COVID-19.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-basics
https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/3.19.20-attested-EO-N-33-20-COVID-19-HEALTH-ORDER.pdf
https://www.kff.org/other/slide/when-state-stay-at-home-orders-due-to-coronavirus-went-into-effect/
https://www.law.com/therecorder/2020/06/29/can-the-government-force-americans-to-wear-masks/?slreturn=20200929100917
https://www.klfy.com/local/how-mask-violations-could-and-could-not-be-prosecuted/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109004/coronavirus-covid19-cases-rate-us-americans-by-state/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/17/upshot/coronavirus-face-mask-map.html
https://masks4all.co/what-states-require-masks/
http://politicalmaps.org/
https://drydenwire.com/news/barron-county-da-says-office-we-will-not-prosecute-referrals-for-violations-of-mask-mandate/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/here-are-the-cities-and-counties-in-wisconsin-that-have-issued-policies-requiring-people-to-wear-a-mask-in-public-spaces/ar-BB16MZ4O
https://www.wilx.com/2020/10/04/michigan-attorney-general-to-no-longer-enforce-governors-covid-19-executive-orders/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/here-are-the-cities-and-counties-in-wisconsin-that-have-issued-policies-requiring-people-to-wear-a-mask-in-public-spaces/ar-BB16MZ4O
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/18/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html
https://www.klfy.com/local/how-mask-violations-could-and-could-not-be-prosecuted/


A special thank you goes to HPU’s Media Services Librarian Josh Harris for allowing us to use his outstanding recording equipment.

If you have any comments, questions, concerns, or criticisms, please contact us via:

Twitter: @Poli_Pros
Instagram: Poli.n.Pros
poli.n.pros@gmail.com

More episodes of this podcast can be found on iTunes and Spotify.