Prisons Serving as Litmus Test for How Governments Worldwide are Responding to COVID-19

Slave Labor, Riots and Death in Prisons in the US and Abroad, as Criminal Justice Organizations Fight for Clemency

Prisons and jails are typically unsanitary, inhabited by ‘undesirables,’ and deeply controversial, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they’re serving as a litmus test for how governments across the United States and the world are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

China

Despite viral outbreaks that have threatened the lives of hundreds of infected prisoners across at least five facilities in mainland China, authorities have chosen to respond not by granting clemency to those most at risk but by firing the officials in charge of those facilities. In fact, when their sentences expire, infected prisoners are being sent to separate facilities instead of released.

Iran

In Iran, where prisons are especially overcrowded and devoid of basic services like plumbing and electricity, the judiciary announced temporary amnesty for 85,000 detainees, or more than one-third of the nation’s entire prison population, including high-profile prisoners like British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghani-Ratcliffe. Those still stuck inside, meanwhile, are facing escalating hardship, with security forces having already killed at least 36 prisoners — many of them members of the heavily persecuted Ahwazi minority — during coronavirus-related prison riots, according to Amnesty International.

Europe

Ireland’s incarcerated population of nearly 4,200 are being told they won’t have access to alcohol-based hand sanitizer, despite its efficacy in stopping viral spread.

In Italy, a prison population of nearly 70,000 has rioted in 27 different facilities in response to what prisoners perceive to be an inadequate effort to halt the spread of the disease behind prison walls.

However, in Turkey, which has a prison population of approximately 280,000, Parliament voted overwhelmingly to allow the release of more than one third of their incarcerated, with sentence reductions and transfers to house arrest.

As Twitter user Sam Feldman said, “This is what a serious response to the crisis looks like.”

The United States

Across the United States, detention centers are an incubator for viral spread, with seven out of 10 of the largest clusters of COVID-19 cases in the US in jails and prisons; they’ve also served as a convenient source for cheap mass labor — as well as the site of multiple rebellions.

Instead of testing, treating and granting clemency to incarcerated people, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and most state and county and prisons and jails are doing the opposite, with infected men and women ‘quarantined’ in solitary confinement.

As Bernie Sanders recognizes, and discussed live on Facebook with The Appeal on Friday, May 8, the most emergent Coronavirus-related “ public health crisis [was] created by mass incarceration in America.”

The BOP could have relied on it’s decades-old policy on Home Confinement to release incarcerated people to protect them, as well as prison employees and the nation at large, for instance; but, “unfortunately…”

The agency decided to recreate the wheel several times in the past few weeks. This has added to the confusion rather than relying on policy, individual assessments of those incarcerated and exercising what the agency frequently refers to as ‘sound correctional judgement.’ Instead, we have ‘lists’ generated that have little connection to the people it affects most.

In four US state prisons, Reuters recently reported, nearly 3,300 inmates have tested positive for coronavirus — 96% without symptoms.

Meanwhile, in at least three states officials are using software to scan inmate calls in an “absurd” attempt to detect Coronavirus…

In Nevada, where officials tried to address their homelessness crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic by painting ‘social-distancing boxes’ six feet apart on pavement, the incarcerated are producing bottles of hand sanitizer for frontline healthcare workers.

In New York, the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis, where Governor Andrew Cuomo recently passed a budget bill rolling back bail reform in the middle of a pandemic, incarcerated people are also producing hand sanitizer for the outside world — starting at $0.16 per hour.

On Rikers Island in New York City, which has the highest infection rate in the world, prisoners are digging mass graves on behalf of the state’s public health department.

Release Aging People in Prison, Parole Preparation Project, VOCAL-NY and other advocacy groups, along with 150 public health experts, have called on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to grant clemency to the most vulnerable populations. As of April 15, he’s taken no action, leading the collective to proclaim that “COVID-19 will create havoc and transform New York state prisons into death camps, and it will be on his watch.”

In Florida, one Miami jail alone has 159 positive coronavirus cases, “as contagion spreads behind bars.”

And, “despite risks to incarcerated people and the public,” “ incarcerated people are still doing the state’s hard outdoor labor,” as well as making masks — while only the guards get protection from the virus.

Meanwhile, as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis touts transparency, the state government has been caught hiding critical COVID-19 information from the public.

One man encased his hands in concrete in protest outside the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee.

In Arizona, incarcerated women “were forced to move from… state prison to live on-site at a chicken farm to continue working during a pandemic.”

These incarcerated women were forced to move from an Arizona state prison to live on-site at a chicken farm to continue working during a pandemic. Inmates who refused were threatened with disciplinary action. They are forced to use portable showers and bathrooms https://t.co/6hP1SdNm7B

- Jimmy Jenkins (@newsjunkyjimmy) April 12, 2020

Texas has also repurposed portions of its incarcerated population for the production of essential goods, including face masks.

Same with Missouri, where incarcerated people “worked all weekend to produce 5,000 face coverings by Monday morning,” April 6; more than one fifth went to Missouri General Assembly members, instead of the general public.

Ultimate #DIY: Faced with a global shortage of protective gear during the COVID-19 crisis, Missouri Vocational Enterprises (MVE) worked all weekend to produce 5,000 face coverings by Monday morning — for use by prison staff & offenders. pic.twitter.com/SMdaDRs26R

- Missouri Department of Corrections (@MoCorrections) April 6, 2020

At Cook County Jail in Chicago, Illinois, sick prisoners are posting signs reading “We matter” and “We’re dying” to their cell windows, begging the outside world for help.

At Stateville Correctional Center, also in Illinois, “it took a prisoner’s death ‘just for them to pass out a single extra bar of soap,’” and incarcerated people have reported physical and emotional breakdown, leading to direct actions and civil rights attorneys filing three cases — including a federal suit against Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and the state Department of Corrections director — “demanding the release of prisoners who are vulnerable to complications from the virus.”

As Alan Mills, executive director of Uptown People’s Law Center and one of the attorneys involved in the federal suit, told The Appeal, “It causes severe damage to your mental health to be locked away that way… People who are mentally ill are absolutely deteriorating and other people are beginning to deteriorate who aren’t mentally ill.”

In Ohio, 31-year-old incarcerated man Aaron DeShawn Campbell echoed those sentiments in a 20-minute video recorded on a contraband phone and posted to Facebook Live.

And state corrections officials are responding to calls for clemency and improved conditions by making things harder:

Marion Correctional shuts down laundry facilities for incarcerated people in prison with most #covid19behindbars cases in OH — you can get a disciplinary ticket for washing your own clothes! How will they wash their masks they are supposed to rotate? pic.twitter.com/vSsOQbYkof

- Prison Abolition Prisoner Support (@iheartpaps) April 25, 2020

In Connecticut, the first incarcerated person to die from COVID-19 was a man in his 60s who had been approved for discretionary release in March; he was serving a two-year sentence for possessing a firearm, and his death occurred “amid intense pressure and a lawsuit against the state by families and advocates seeking a wider release of prisoners in the crisis.”

As of April 13, 166 inmates and 104 staff members had tested positive for the coronavirus, more than doubling the number of confirmed cases since late the previous week.

In North Carolina, the “Federal Correctional Complex in Butner has now reported that four inmates have died and at least 82 inmates have tested positive for Covid-19 — so far, the highest number of cases of any federal prison in the nation.”

And while Butner is the state’s worst example, “Covid-19 infections have been reported in at least six state prisons, with at least 37 state prisoners and 20 staff testing positive” and “those numbers… swiftly climbing.”

As Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, President of Repairers of the Breach, and Daryl V. Atkinson, Co-Executive Director of Forward Justice, write:

The way states like North Carolina are currently addressing the coronavirus epidemic in state prisons and jails risks not only disappearing human beings — permanently — but exacerbating the duration and devastation of the nationwide pandemic, too.

Barber and Atkinson have released a call to empty North Carolina’s prisons and jails.

At Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas, incarcerated people rioted for hours across a medium-security cell block before the uprising was ultimately quelled by guards with tear gas.

In Louisiana, as Coronavirus hits juvenile detention centers, “ mothers of incarcerated youth say the state is giving them no information.”

And adults aren’t faring much better:

Over 100 prisoners chose to riot, claiming they are being denied proper care against Covid-19. They also claim they’re being denied food and showers. The prisons emergency response team used pepper spray and sting balls that release a flash noise and rubber pellets, according to DOC spokeswoman Susan Biller.

After at least three detainees were diagnosed with COVID-19 at Monroe Correctional Complex in Washington, prisoners staged a protest — and were met with pepper spray and rubber bullets.

In California, incarcerated people like Ivan Kilgore “whistleblew” about the deplorable conditions in prison, and were “ cruelly punished;” there’s now a Change.org petition to California Governor Gavin Newsom with the goal of “ending this retaliation and protecting everyone in the system from being infected with COVID-19.”

And these are not isolated incidents. Prison rebellions are being sparked nationwide, as documented by Perilous Chronicle.

As one anonymous source informed us, incarcerated people across the country are sharing information and resources through secure messaging apps. Meanwhile, legal aid societies, advocacy organizations like Worth Rises and concerned individuals are working overtime throughout the US to try to help the most vulnerable populations, many demanding #ClemencyNow and making abundantly clear that they’d warned the state and federal governments that this would happen as soon as the public learned coronavirus had hit the nation’s shores.

In mid-April, organizations throughout Georgia issued a “COVID-19 Prisoner Release Plan” to:

• Save thousands of lives
• Make prisons manageable during the pandemic
• Generate jobs
• Minimize societal disruption
• Protect prison employees and their families
• Reduce spending during the economic crisis

With urging from the state’s branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has started reviewing some inmates for early release.

And, with at least 15 Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) employees testing positive for COVID-19 since March, the DJJ released 99 incarcerated juveniles in late April.

COVID-19 Behind Bars, an independent journalist project, is tracking jails, prisons, detention centers and other facilities impacted by the pandemic, with a real-time Google Map.

On Twitter, activists and justice organizations are coordinating efforts, as well as soliciting calls to action from celebrities.

Led by the American Friends Service Committee’s Michigan Criminal Justice Program and Amani Sawari, the Michigan spokesperson for Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, activists staged a Twitter protest on Tuesday, April 15, using the hashtag #LetMiPeopleGo to urge Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and corrections officials to release prison inmates.

As of Monday night, April 14, more than 400 incarcerated men and women had contracted COVID-19, and 10 had already died; 169 corrections officers had also contracted the virus, leading to two more deaths.

On April 19, CNN reported the COVID-19 death of a Michigan man who, after decades in prison, was set for release on parole in mere weeks.

The formerly incarcerated Joshua B. Hoe, now the host of the Decarceration Nation podcast and a policy analyst with Safe & Just Michigan, told us “#LetMiPeopleGo” was the number-one trending topic in Michigan for much of the day on the 15th, with hundreds of thousands of impressions of tweets from nearly 100 participants.

The following day, April 16, Joshua and the Safe & Just Michigan team led a free Zoom panel on commutations with regional and national experts.

In New York, I coordinated with Rehabilitation Through The Arts and Woman to Woman to direct privately produced masks to the Taconic Correctional Facility for women.

Mickey Alice Kwapis, a taxidermist and artist living in Chicago, Illinois, has been using social media to auction and raffle off her art and taxidermy to raise money for organizations assisting incarcerated people in Cook County Jail and other facilities in her home city.

On April 16, she told us:

I don’t have much because the pandemic has of course impacted my daily business, but I can still use my platform for good. Last weekend I auctioned off a lot of one-of-a-kind jewelry in a sample sale and split 50% of my sales between the Chicago Community Bond Fund and the Bail Project. This week I’ve put together a raffle for a framed collection of beautiful insect specimens. Tickets are $1 each or 25 for $20 and I am donating 100% of the ticket sales to the Chicago Community Bond Fund since their focus is specifically on Cook County Jail, which needs immediate attention. Participation has been much higher than I anticipated so tomorrow I am also adding several more items to the raffle in order to boost everyone’s chance of winning something.

Among the celebrities who’ve leveraged their fame for the cause are singer John Legend and actor Joaquin Phoenix.

Leaders must do everything possible to prevent incarcerated people and those who work in prisons from becoming ill and spreading #COVID19. @NYGovCuomo, it’s time for action. pic.twitter.com/xg0UBLYWrQ

- John Legend (@johnlegend) April 14, 2020

Madonna, too, recently joined the fight, collaborating with rapper Meek Mill’s REFORM alliance to donate 100,000 masks to United States prisons.

What’s next for the 2.3-million people incarcerated in the United States? Only time will tell. And the same can be said for prisoners across the world, as governments scramble to weigh public health, politics and the value of human life.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Ben & Jerry’s: “Mass Incarceration in the Time of COVID-19: Racist, Risky, and Reversible”

Beyond Prisons: “Prisoner Support Guide For The Coronavirus Crisis”

Law360 via Sentencing Law and Policy: “Tips for Prisoner Release Requests During Pandemic”

The Marshall Project: “What Happens When More Than 300,000 Prisoners Are Locked Down? The United States is about to find out as officials struggle to contain the coronavirus.”

CBS News: “The coronavirus crisis behind bars”

Nora V. Demleitner, W&L Law School, for SSRN: “State Prosecutors at the Center of Mass Imprisonment and Criminal Justice Reform”: Examining the threat of COVID-19 in jails and prisons as a case study of prosecutorial authority

Micah Herskind, The Souther Center for Human Rights: “Three Reasons Advocates Must Move Beyond Demanding Release for ‘Nonviolent Offenders’”

The New York Times: “No One Deserves to Die of Covid-19 in Jail… But more than 100 inmates already have.”

The Appeal: “Every Public Official with the Power to Decarcerate Must Exercise That Power Now”

Slate: “It’s Time to Start Releasing Some Prisoners With Violent Records”

Herald.News: “War for the Soul of Mankind” (An Interview with a Formerly Incarcerated Spoken Word Poet)

Jennifer Toon, The Guardian: “I was in prison for two decades — here’s what I learned about isolation”

Lauren-Brooke Eisen and Lauren Seabrooks, Brennan Center: “Covid-19 Highlights the Need for Prison Labor Reform”

Originally published at https://herald.news on May 9, 2020.