More than 20 inmates and five detention officers from the Newton County Jail tested positive for COVID-19 last month. Correctional officers likely brought the virus into the facility. The outbreak is alarming, as its close proximity to Oxford College could endanger students on campus. More troubling is that the Newton County outbreak showcases is far from an isolated event — the public health system has consistently failed to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks in jails and prisons nationwide.
Throughout the pandemic, government and public health officials at all levels have ignored and even exacerbated the extreme suffering of incarcerated people. America’s prisoners have been subjected to extraordinarily unsafe conditions, such as close living quarters, and officials have been reluctant to aid incarcerated peoples with underlying health conditions. Worst of all, some states still hesitate to vaccinate them at all. This is both inequitable and dangerously inhumane. State governments, as well as the Biden administration, must cease this inhumane treatment.
Last December, the Marshall Project reported that 20% of state and federal prisoners — more than 275,000 people — had tested positive for the coronavirus. Most states’ COVID-19 incidence rates far exceed those of their general populations, though Georgia is an exception. Given the exceedingly high infection rate, state and federal prisoners deserve to be prioritized in the vaccine rollout.
Many jails and prisons are human “petri dishes” in which the virus is able to spread rapidly through facilities packed to the brim with vulnerable inmates. Overcrowding has accelerated the spread of the virus in prisons nationwide, and a lack of prison testing in several states has made it even harder to contain outbreaks. At the end of 2018, the Equal Justice Initiative announced that the number of prisons in 25 states either met or exceeded their total number of beds allotted for inmates. These numbers have only worsened since. With extreme overcrowding, inmates have been forced to cram together in rooms with bunks stacked three beds high and spaced only inches apart. These unsafe conditions make social distancing unattainable and encourage skyrocketing rates of infection — a clear violation of basic human rights.
Most states openly prioritize correctional staff above inmates. The inequality between staff and inmates is clear throughout the carceral system, but it is even more dire for minorities and female prisoners.
“Currently, several inmates are experiencing long hauler symptoms,”Chalana McFarland, a former inmate at FCI Coleman Camp and current employee at CanDo Clemency, wrote in an email to the Wheel. “They have prolonged symptoms of COVID-19, for which they are not receiving any treatment – nothing is being prescribed – and respiratory therapy is not available.”
The prospect of prioritizing inmates for vaccination has proved controversial in some states. In Colorado, for instance, one state representative criticized Gov. Jared Polis for a vaccine distribution plan that prioritized incarcerated people over seniors and some residents with preexisting health problems. The lawmakers’ argument would make sense if prisoners lived like the rest of us, but they do not. In fact, prisoners are one of the most vulnerable populations — the positive COVID-19 rate is four times higher in the prison system than in the general American population. They need vaccines now, not in four months.
The federal government has yet to release a vaccination plan for inmates in federal correctional facilities, and President Joe Biden must rectify that immediately. The same goes for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers. Without adequate social distancing measures and testing, many of these prisoners and detainees will die preventable deaths.
Incarceration cannot erase a person’s humanity. Those living in jails and prisons deserve to survive the pandemic just as much as everyone else. The two aren’t even separate issues; the Newton County Jail outbreak could spread COVID-19 throughout the surrounding area, including Oxford College, which is only eight minutes from the facility by car. The way we treat those whom we’ve locked away reflects our identity as a country and people.
By equitably distributing the vaccine to our imprisoned population, we can finally begin to move beyond the dehumanization that has defined the U.S. prison-industrial complex since its inception. We must treat prisoners with kindness throughout the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and ensure that they have fair access to the shots that may very well save both their lives and ours.
The above editorial represents the majority opinion of the Wheel’s Editorial Board. The Editorial Board is composed of Sahar Al-Gazzali, Brammhi Balarajan, Viviana Barreto, Rachel Broun, Jake Busch, Sara Khan, Sophia Ling, Martin Shane Li, Demetrios Mammas, Meredith McKelvey, Sara Perez, Ben Thomas, Leah Woldai, Lynnea Zhang and Yun Zhu.
