Friends,
Try to imagine being in prison during a pandemic. When Clare Grady spoke yesterday during her sentencing, she indicated social distancing was not possible in any jail or prison where she served time.
Kagiso, Max
Report Finds Over 100
Rebellions in Jails and Prisons Over COVID Conditions
November 13, 2020
U.S jails and prisons, already
death traps, have been completely ravaged by COVID-19. Crowded quarters, a lack
of PPE, inadequate medical care, an aging population, and unsanitary conditions
have contributed to an infection rate 5.5 times higher than the already
ballooned average in the U.S. As of this writing, over 252,000 people in jails and prisons
have been infected and at least 1,450 incarcerated people and officers have
died from the novel coronavirus. Evidence suggests these figures are underreported, however. (The entire state of
Wisconsin, for example, isn’t releasing any information to the
public.)
In response, incarcerated
people have shown strong solidarity, coming together to demand baseline safety
measures and advocating for their release, only to be met with brutal
repression and punishment.
According to a new report released by the archival group
Perilous: A Chronicle of Prisoner Unrest on November 13, incarcerated people in
the U.S. collectively organized at least 106 COVID-19 related rebellions from
March 17 to June 15. Perilous, a volunteer collective project that tracks
information on all prison uprisings, riots, protests, strikes and other unrest
within carceral facilities, described this activity as “clearly one of the most
massive waves of prisoner resistance in the past decade.”
Duncan Tarr, a researcher at
Perilous, tells Truthout, “Since corrections departments and ICE contractors
are unwilling to prevent the spread of the virus, prisoners and detainees have
been taking action themselves to draw attention to the dangerous situation they
find themselves in and to resist the system of incarceration that is killing
them.”
Perilous’s analysis found that
people rose up inside federal and state prisons, jails, juvenile carceral
centers, and Immigration Detention Centers in 39 states. Immigrant Detention
Centers rebelled most frequently, with 45 separate events. Thirty-two
rebellions took place in private prisons (25 of which had contracts with
Immigration and Customs Enforcement), a disproportionate response as less
than 9 percent of prisons in the United States
are privately operated. Louisiana, with a rich history of work stoppages, rebellions and an
indefatigable support infrastructure, was the state with the
highest frequency of COVID-19-related prison rebellions. California and
Washingtonwere the second and third most rebellious respectively.
Common demands have included
that guards wear masks and that departments provide individuals with protective
items like soap, masks, and hand sanitizer.
In early April, an estimated
120 to 180 detainees inside GEO Group’s Adelanto ICE “Processing Center” in
California went on hunger strike after two individuals
exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms were sent to the hospital. Striker Marcos Duran
told Perilous that the private prison’s guards weren’t wearing masks. Detainees
did not have access tosoap or shampoo, were forced to eat alongside 50-60 other
detainees, and slept in the same room as seven others, Duran said. As of
October 7, according to Desert Sun, nearly 20 percent of detainees at
Adelanto had contracted COVID-19.
Beyond hunger strikes, Perilous
documented 21 “uprisings” in American prisons, defined as collective acts of
rebellion that exceed the usual scope of a protest through unpredictable or
chaotic means.
In Monroe, Washington, after
six incarcerated people and five staff members were diagnosed with COVID-19, an estimated 100
to 200 incarcerated people staged a protest over inadequate protective measures and a
downplaying of the virus in the recreation yard at Monroe Correctional Complex
on April 8. Joshua Vermaat, an incarcerated person at MCC, described his concerns in a letter to a
friend, excerpts of which were published in KUOW, NPR. He said the Department
of Corrections was transferring uninfected incarcerated people into
contaminated tiers. He wrote, “We’ve been safe until now, but because of their
lack of foresight and proper planning, now they need rooms for more vulnerable
inmates and they want us to go into the ‘hot zone’ to make room for them.”
Incarcerated people in the U.S.
collectively organized at least 106 COVID-19 related rebellions from March 17
to June 15.
“They tried to bribe us with
McDonald’s food. Are you flipping kidding … if you would do anything I ask you
to tell this to the news and to the governor, this isn’t right.”
Some people refused orders to
move. Their grievances were met with chemical weapons, rubber bullets and sting
balls, according to the Department of Corrections. Demonstrators were
ultimately forced to surrender.
The next day Vermaat said the
resistance led to a change in tone from the DOC, but that the facility went on
lock down. “No one here wants violence, NO ONE, but at the same time you’ve got
400+ … who are now being backed into corners.”
One month later, a guard at
Monroe Correctional died from COVID-19.
Cook County Jail in Chicago, a
site with the largest outbreak of any location in the
state of Illinois, rebelled on six separate occasions including one uprising
and several hunger strikes. On at least one occasion some detainees attempted
or threatened to attempt suicide.
Over the course of April, the
jail had released nearly a fourth of its population, decreasing it from 5,604
to 4,301. But, despite early resistance, Cook County Jail’s population has
crept up again to nearly pre-pandemic levels.
COVID-19 flareups behind bars
have undoubtedly contributed to the United States’ abysmal failure to control
the virus. Despite urgent calls for action from public health scientists
in The Lancet, the ACLU and countless other organizations,
Democratic and Republican politicians alike, from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to Alabama
Gov. Kay Ivey, have largely refused to reduce prison populations by
any meaningful margin. In the ACLU’s evaluation of state efforts to prevent
COVID-19 deaths behind bars, Colorado, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota,
Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia received the best scores, all with
a “D-”. After sustained activism and a mounting death
toll, on November 4, New Jersey released more than 2,000 incarcerated people
who were already nearing the end of their sentences.
In the face of negligence, Ivan
Von Staich, an incarcerated person at the notoriously brutal San Quentin State
Prison, filed a lawsuit in May against the California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation alleging “deliberate indifference to the risk of substantial
harm to inmates by failing to immediately reduce the prison population of San
Quentin by releasing or transferring at least 50 percent of the population of
the prison.” After the filing, San Quentin suffered an outbreak of at least
2,500 cases and at least 29 deaths. On October 20, the First District
Court of Appeal in California ruled in Von Staich’s favor, ordering
the release or transfer of nearly 1,500
incarcerated people. The court wrote, “If necessary to achieve this reduction,
respondents are ordered to revise their expedited release programs to include
inmates over 60, who have served at least 25 years of their sentences and are
eligible for parole, such as life prisoners eligible for parole and second or
third strike prisoners, even if such prisoners are serving a sentence for a
violent offense.”
Incarcerated people and public
health experts warn, however, that transfers increase the spread of COVID-19. San
Quentin’s massive outbreak resulted from transfers. “The best way to help keep
prisoners from contracting the virus would be mass releases,” Christopher
Blackwell, an incarcerated man at Monroe previously told Truthout. “Absent those, it is
essential to cease transfers and provide incarcerated people with adequate
supplies.”
Instead of mass releases, as
the U.S. enters its third wave,
many departments’ chosen preventative measures continue to be “lockdowns,”
or confining people in their cells for 21 to 23 hours a day. It’s estimated
that 300,000 people
incarcerated in state and federal prisons are in lockdown or solitary
confinement conditions. Many incarcerated people have lost phone privileges and
(already scant) programming. As budgets are slashed without complementary mass releases,
healthcare services behind bars will continue to deteriorate, according to
Perilous’ report.
Prior to COVID-19, experts
considered U.S. prisons to be ‘ticking time
bombs.’ Baseline volatile conditions remain and the virus is an
accelerant. There is some hope that the virus will be better managed once Biden
and Harris take power, although they have not yet released a plan that puts
people over profit.
Tarr hopes that the Perilous
report will bring some attention to the struggle behind bars during this
chaotic time. “As the national political crisis continues to play out over the
next few months, it is important that some of the most vulnerable to COVID-19 —
those locked up by our government — are not forgotten and that their cries for
help and freedom do not go unheard,” he said. “And a close look at the first
few months of their resistance to the pandemic can shed some light on how we
might move forward in preventing more unneeded deaths inside prison walls.”
Copyright © Truthout. May not be
reprinted without permission.
Ella Fassler is an independent writer and researcher based in Rhode Island. Her work has been featured in The Nation and The Appeal. Follow her on Twitter: @EllaFassler.
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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