Black Lifers Matter - How COVID-19 Threatens Lives of People in Prisons
Published on Portside (https://portside.org/)
Martina Hazelton
and Ransom Watkins
August 20, 2020
Maryland Matters
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We have always felt this urgency – we live with it
every day as Black people who are incarcerated or whose loved ones are
incarcerated. But now, more than ever, we need others to see it too, because
staying “safe” inside prison during a pandemic is impossible.
The Lifer Family Support Network was created because
there was a need for Black families to connect and be able to share information
about our efforts for loved ones serving lengthy sentences. We provide a
platform for information sharing and support, not only for the person behind
the wall, but also for the family members who have to cope with having a loved
one who is incarcerated and who, themselves, are ostracized in every other
space.
By definition, what we and our loved ones experience
are as much racial justice issues as they are human rights issues. About 77% of
people serving life-with-parole sentences in Maryland are Black, even though
our state is about 30% Black. Maryland is tied with states such as Alabama and
Louisiana in racial disparities.
For those with parole-eligible life sentences,
Maryland’s parole system politicizes the process by putting the decision in the
hands of the governor. That is why our group has worked with organizations such
as the Maryland Restorative Justice Initiative to pass legislation to take the
politics out of parole and leave the final decision to the Maryland Parole
Commission. Members of the Parole Commission are appointed by the governor, but
they examine lifers’ demonstrated rehabilitation based on years of vetting and
a rigorous review.
Taking the governor out of the process would give
Marylanders serving parole-eligible life sentences a meaningful chance to prove
their rehabilitation.
But let’s not forget that Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr.
(R) could release these Marylanders at any time to help protect their lives and
the lives of others inside the walls from COVID-19.
But he has chosen not to—he hasn’t even bothered to
speed consideration and releases of elderly lifers who are extremely vulnerable.
To protect themselves during the pandemic people in
prisons and jails have had to purchase more personal hygiene and cleaning
supplies. That is difficult for people in prisons and jails who either cannot
work or who make cents an hour in Maryland. In many cases their loved ones are
already struggling to help pay for their needs.
Family members and friends help pay for expensive
phone calls, books, medicine, soap, and cleaning supplies.
During this time of heightened financial uncertainty,
that obligation cannot always be met. And if the person in a correctional
institutional does not have a loved one to depend on, they go without.
Insufficient health care, overcrowding, and lack of
enough soap, hand sanitizer, and proper air filtration systems in our prisons
and jails exacerbate people’s risk of COVID-19 and show how Maryland’s leaders
have a complete disregard for the lives of the people on the inside. This
situation has gone on for years. The current pandemic only peeled back the
layers of mistreatment behind prison walls.
Because we know the state is continuing to fail to
meet the hygiene needs of Marylanders who are incarcerated during the pandemic,
our members decided to run a fundraiser to ease some of the financial burden
people in prisons and jails are facing and help provide necessary sanitary
items that will keep them safe.
We hope to be able to give $50 to five people at each
of Maryland’s 11 correctional institutions.
The legal justice system does everything it possibly
can to strip people behind bars of their humanity, separate them from their
families, and not provide the adequate care that human beings deserve.
Join us in disrupting that. Join us in showing the
people inside that Black lifers matter.
Martina Hazelton is a cofounder of the Lifer Family
Support Network and Ransom Watkins is an exoneree and member of the Lifer
Family Support Network.
Email: familysupprtntwrk@gmail.com
Source URL: https://portside.org/2020-08-22/black-lifers-matter-how-covid-19-threatens-lives-people-prisons
Donations can be sent to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore
Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206, Baltimore, MD 21212.
Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the
subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to
gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and
everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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