We all know the dangers of COVID-19; however, we may not be aware of how the prison systems are being affected and will lead to serious community issues.
Days before the first reported cases of COVID-19 in prisons and jails, institutional healthcare authorities warned that overcrowded, aging facilities with deficient sanitary conditions and poor medical support and then add to it older prisoners with underlying illnesses where staff, guards, healthcare workers go in and out of facilities, to their homes, create the opportunities for outbreaks.
According to a June 5,2020 article written by Grace Toohey, a reporter on the Orlando Sentinel’s Justice & Safety team, as of this week, 15 inmates have died after testing positive for COVID-19 across all state prisons. Homestead Correctional Institution, a women’s prison in Miami-Dade County, has seen the most positive coronavirus tests among inmates of any Florida state facility.
This is a two-part inside story from an inmate at a correctional institution in the state of Florida. His name has been changed to protect any retaliation from this story. There are graphic details in this story of life inside of prison with COVID-19.
PART I
By Reality Check
His name is Reality Check. He was sentenced to life, and he has been locked down for 22 years. Today his purpose is to *servant leadership*. The words spiritual growth, education and love of community now describe him.
The first time I saw a man stabbed to death in prison he couldn’t have been more than 25-years old. He had six weeks to go before being released to society. He never made it home.
Last week I found myself looking at the dead body of a young brother who’d been choked to death, he’d been in prison for a year and had only a few weeks to go before being released back to society; he was 20 years old. His mother got a call from the prison chaplain telling her that her son would not be coming home.
I’ve been in prison over 20 years. I’ve seen too much death, too many stabbings. The word prison and death are synonymous. The reality is prison and death go hand-in-hand.
Truth is, there are many men in here who numb themselves to the death around us. Please don’t judge them, because for some the only way to avoid living in fear of being a victim of the violence is to numb yourself to its reality.
Allow me to be the one to tell you a secret, to share something with you that most of these men in here won’t even allow themselves to say out loud, where men in prison began to understand the reality of what the Corona virus was, the dynamics and method by which it unleashed death and the circumstances that accelerated the speed at which it could spread.
Many men who had over time became numb to the presence of death, numb to the possibility of dying in prison, began feeling a deep, bone chilling and tangible fear. In an environment where men are surrounded by murderers and serial killers and walk foolishly among them, the coronavirus threat penetrated man’s composure, creating a fear in a way a man standing over them with a knife wouldn’t.
Why? …Well for one, you feel more confident about your chances of over-powering an enemy or force that you can see and two, we all know that even if policy was implemented to protect us, these policies would not be carried out effectively.
Our daily dealings with prison officials educate us, allowing us to be able to foresee the absence of any consistence by the ground troops which would guarantee minimization of vicious outbreaks behind these walls. We feel vulnerable. We know we were in grave danger when someone gets stabbed in here and security staff finally gets around to calling the medical staff to assist the dying man on a daily basis. We watch medical staff walk slowly to the scene and nonchalant to the fact that every second counts when a man is fighting for his life.
Every single day of our lives, staff members tell us that our lives have no value beyond guaranteeing them a paycheck. Why then would we believe that the thought culture of such an environment would give birth to aggressions and discipline regarding the formulation and application of preventative methods to ensure the safety of men who are constantly told their lies have no value.
So we have and continue to feel vulnerable. Survivors of stabbings, and prison wars, prison riots and police brutality, we begin to experience an unfamiliar level of anxiety and helplessness in the face of death.
Let me share with you a few areas of daily dysfunction which amplify the grave danger men incarcerated face dealing with corona related issues.
Let me preface by highlighting that on January 30, 2020 the World Health Organization(WHO) declared a global emergency. January 31, 2020, health and human services secretary Alex Azhar declared a public health emergency for the United States. February 11, 2020 WHO gave the virus it’s official name, COVID-19 and on March 1, 2020 governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency.
The timeline covers a month, an extremely important observation because from the very first press briefings one of the number one preventive given was to wash your hands thoroughly for 20 seconds consistently throughout the day.
Now, in prison they hand out two bars of soap weekly. Each of these bars is just slightly bigger than the soap you find on the sink at a motel or in an airplane bathroom. Within four days of one a day showers, the soap is gone officials notice. Yet, until the edit expectations of thorough handwashing daily, no extra soap was given to men who pre-corona already had insufficient soap.
Be the first to comment