I want to begin this piece with my empathy for my brothers and sisters behind the wall, we have not forgotten about you. I empathize, rather than sympathize. Sympathy is recognition through a lens of pity, saying, “I see what’s happening to you” while empathy is recognition through the lens of shared understanding, saying, “I see what’s happening to us”. My empathy with incarcerated people in the United States throughout the current coronavirus pandemic begs me to hold their experiences as a lens with which I use to examine American officials’ responses to the pandemic outside of the prison walls. My observations enrage me, however they also incite me to collaborate on efforts that force the state to respond more appropriately to these crises concerning the two million plus people incarcerated across the country.
Storefronts are Empty
Now that the country is taking care not to have too many people in one space businesses have been making sure to provide patrons with outdoor dining/shopping alternatives in heavily circulated areas. As a result not many people are shopping, eating or congregating indoors. Restaurants have cut their seating capacities in half. Salons providing hair, facial and nail grooming services are open by appointment only and even shops and boutiques have cut back their hours to serve customers by appointment basis. All of the public spaces I’ve visited over the past month have reduced their hours. Along with this, the state recently mandated that walk-in businesses require their patrons to wear masks while indoors.
And Prisons are Still Crowded
I wish that state officials would respond to the overcrowding problem in the penitentiary with the same vigor that they depopulated our offices, shops, restaurants and schools.
State governors cleared out every congregated area with swiftly passed executive orders that were strictly enforced at every level. Regardless, Corrections Dept. continue to ignoring the recommendations of the CDC as there are thousands of incarcerated people who spend as many as 23 hours of each day in an unventilated room with covered or no windows. The average person in prison has outdoor access for less than 12 hours each day. Specifically in Michigan’s Dept. of Corrections the outdoor recreation “yard” area opens at 7:30a and closes at 10:50a. The yard reopens at 12:00 noon before closing again at 4:05p (for a head count where every inmate is counted by prison staff). Following count time, the yard reopens at 5:00p until finally closing at 9:20p For moments where prisoners are unable to access outdoor ventilation, they are able to order a handheld fan for $20.
Recently staff have been required to wear face masks. In some facilities masks have been distributed to the inmate population, in others there are consequences for prisoners being found without a face covering that range from being given a ticket to being sent to quarantine (revised solitary). Community mutual aids like in California, South Carolina and Michigan have provided people in prison with funds to purchase masks, medications, fans, sanitizers, vitamins and other items related to their health and care.
Provoke the Power of the Pen
While some people in prison have access to masks and other critical supplies, little to no actual policy changes have been made in order to significantly reduce prison populations. Governors have the powers and tools to dramatically decarcerate now, but have refused to use their executive authority over their state prison system. As a result, people in prison are critically suffering. Prisoners have reported instances where staff fail to wear masks and show symptoms or sickness. Practices that allow cross contamination, like unnecessary shakedowns and strip searches persist (the decreased number of staff working make the threat of spread even more likely as the same guards are stretched to manage more inmates throughout multiple shifts).
The prison class has not been given the same, or even equitable protections during the pandemic as their friends and families on the outside or even as the staff who stand with them behind the wall. It’s obvious that the minimum requirements set by the CDC for best managing the coronavirus in public spaces have not been met in jails, prisons and detention centers. This lack of care by government and prison officials toward the prison population is appalling.With all of the changes we’ve seen across society, prisons are the only places that remain the same…overcrowded and lacking any serious considerations of the lives impacted people held within them and loved ones of those. Every other area of our society has been forced into making drastic change for the safety and security of us all. Why hasn’t this attitude stretched over the prison system? Prisons are the epitome of an institution built to maintain the safety and security of our society, so why didn’t officials start there? Prisoners should have been the first to get masks, people in prison should have been among the first to incorporate higher sanitation precautions, social distancing practices should have been utilized earliest in prison by implementing dramatically reduced sentencing requirements. So long as the pandemic persists behind the wall, it is imminently awaiting us all. The second spike is being brewed up by prison and political officials who refuse to take dramatic action to fix the overcrowded prison problem now.
