Is there a cauldron of COVID 19 infection in New York at risk of boiling over? Several groups are worried that conditions in state prisons are creating a health problem that’s largely being ignored.
Groups concerned about prison conditions and inmate safety are sounding an alarm that those incarcerated are facing a much higher coronavirus threat than the general public – and higher than they need to. Those incarcerated live in small cells, often with one or two others, or in large dormitories, so social distancing is impossible. Jennifer Scaife of The Correctional Association of New York says concern over virus spread is nt just within the prison walls.
“Not only do people come home from their sentences, but these are staff intensive institutions that require a huge amount of contact from the outside world. And people in orison are increasingly an aging group who prior to their incarceration had typically poor access to good public health and community health, and are more likely to have chronic conditions that make them more susceptible to infectious disease.”
Scaife says when inmates get tested, almost two-thirds come back positive. State records show more than 1200 confirmed cases in prison staff, just over 460 in inmates, and 61 among those paroled from prison. Death totals from COVID 19 are 4 in staff, 16 in inmates and 4 in parolees. The inmate groups dispute those figures and say here and in other states prisons are becoming hot spots for new infections.
Molly Gill with inmate group Families Against Mandatory Minimums adds health rights of those incarcerated are being violated.
“Prison is no place you want to be sick with COVID. Medical care on a good day is appalling and if you get very sick, they’re probably not keeping you in the prison medical center where they don’t have ventilators. They’re going to put you out in the community and now you’re taking up a community hospital bed. That’s why we care about COVID 19 in prisons, is prison health is public health.”
The groups are calling for an end to shortages of protective equipment and masks for both staff and inmates… and requirements that inmates wear masks; now only staff must. They also suggest more testing, including of asymptomatic people, so they can be isolated and reduce the spread within prisons, as well as the inevitable risk that spills out.
CONCERNS OVER INMATE EXPLOITATION
Inmates at a number of prisons have been making hand sanitizer and more recently masks. The State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, as well as Governor Andrew Cuomo, reported that those who are incarcerated took pride in making a contribution. But Khalil Cumberbatch with New Yorkers United for Justice found many were forced to work, when the sanitizer was not even available for their own use.
“One of our demands was that those folks be compensated appropriately. Those folks are just as … important as those on the front lines of this. To get sanitizer now is extremely difficult, especially … in the quantities (needed). Some of them are working (long) hours and weeks and prison wages are, substandard is not even the right word for it.”
Scaife adds working conditions also need to be safe to further help restrict the spread of the virus.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GOVERNOR CUOMO
(Source: Correctionalassociation.org)
- Use clemency power to commute the sentences of anyone who has a heightened vulnerability to COVID-19, including the elderly, pregnant women, people with serious illnesses, and people with otherwise compromised immune systems.
- Commute the sentences of people aged 50 and older who have served at least 10 years in DOCCS custody. There are approximately 1,311 people who meet these criteria.
- Commute the sentences of people with determinate or indeterminate sentences who have a maximum expiration/conditional release date within the next two years, regardless of medical history. There are approximately 12,679 people who meet these criteria.
- Expedite review of medical parole applications and urge the parole board to grant every eligible application.
- Commute the sentences of people with medical issues without regard to whether they meet the criteria for medical parole.
- Disclose how many COVID-19 tests and respirators have been allocated to DOCCS.
- Require that face masks be distributed in correctional facilities initially to people who exhibit flu-like symptoms; require DOCCS to increase inventory of face masks to distribute eventually to all incarcerated people in its custody.
- Commute the sentences of people serving time in county jails for minor offenses to reduce county jail populations; also commute sentences of people in county jails convicted of low level felonies who have sentences of between one and five years to further reduce intake to DOCCS.
- Require county jails to check everyone for COVID-19 symptoms.
- Support the new bail laws as they are now; do not push for any rollbacks to current bail statutes, as rollbacks would increase the amount of people in county jails and increase difficulty in managing COVID-19 exposure.
