In balloon failures at about a third of the state’s 52 correctional facilities, nine prisoners were killed in a three-week period and more than 1,000 prisoners were infected in that time, according to a WNYC / Gothamist analysis of data from the state Department of Corrections and Community Oversight.
The analysis shows that the infection rates in prisons are now twice as high as the general public. As COVID-19 cases are strong and the looming threat of a new, more contagious COVID-19 variant, public health advocates and experts warn that inmates and correctional officers are prioritizing for vaccination and that vulnerable inmates are being released is now more urgent than ever.
“You have men and women in our prison system who are scholars, pioneers, educators, teachers, and many of them have been in prison for three or four decades,” Jose Saldana said with Let Older People Free in Prison The group is Considers that the situation is critical and has been calling on Governor Andrew Cuomo for several months to release people who are already eligible for release, or within a year of release, or who have serious underlying health conditions it and is in danger. die if they catch the virus.
Saldana has served 38 years in prison and was released in 2018. His friend died during the summer in COVID-19 prison, and another friend, who is elderly and locked up in the Great Meadow Correctional, was just diagnosed this week.
‘They survived the HIV health crisis. They survived the health crisis of hepatitis. “Tuberculosis outbreaks,” he said. “They’ve survived so many things and we can’t expect them to survive.”
The governor was asked if a wider group of people would be released from prison as the number of cases is very large but his office does not respond. The Department of Corrections and Supervision of the Community (DOCCS) has continued a policy introduced in the spring in response to the pandemic to release people within 90 days of their official release date and those detained for technical parole violations. Since mid-August, 1,282 people have been released early, less than the 2,268 people released early in previous months, according to Department of Corrections statements.
A total of 27 people locked up in state prisons have died since the start of the pandemic. So far, the death toll has remained lower than that of the general population, according to a Gothamist / WNYC analysis. But the current increase in deaths – nine in three weeks – is of concern to public health experts.
“The death toll is likely to rise in prison simply because we are talking about an aging population where you would expect a greater prevalence of underlying conditions,” Daliah Heller told Vital Strategies, the global public health initiative. turned her attention to prisons during the outbreak of COVID-19. She said the looming prospect for the new, more contagious variant of COVID-19 popping up in a prison is making the situation even more dire.
“The urgency with this new tension in no places where people live close to each other like prisons is enormous,” she said.
The governors’ office has not released guidelines on when correctional staff and inmates can be vaccinated for COVID-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control, correctional officers fall into the category of an essential worker and must be next in line to be vaccinated to health workers and those living in long-term care facilities.
James Miller, a spokesman for the union representing correctional workers in New York, said there was no indication of when vaccinations would take place.
“I do not have a time frame when it will be available to the officers working in the facilities,” he said.
A DOCCS spokesman said the agency was working with the state Department of Health on a timeline for vaccinations. A State Health Department spokesman declined to say when inmates would be vaccinated and said correctional officers would be vaccinated “when they are eligible.”
While the first spate of COVID-19 infections mostly hit prisons in the country like Sing Sing, this fall infections began to increase at facilities across the state, starting with Elmira in Chemung County and Greene Correctional Facility in Greene County, followed by outbreaks in more than a year. dozen other prisons.
Barbed wire watchtower and fence stand outside Sing Sing, in Ossining, NY
Mark Lennihan / AP / Shutterstock
“It reflects what’s going on in the community,” said Sophie Gebreselassie, a staff lawyer at the Legal Aid Society’s Prisoners Rights Project. Correctional officers and civilians can bring the virus to prisons and make inmates sick, and they can catch and release it in prisons, which local officials say are causing outbreaks in the surrounding community, such as in Greene County.
“This is one of the many reasons why New Yorkers should pay attention to what is going on behind the walls of the prison,” she said. “The virus does not respect barbed wire.”
In an effort to keep the virus out of prisons, visitors are currently not allowed. However, it is not necessary for staff to come out of prisons daily and be tested, but a voluntary testing plan is expected to begin on January 11, about ten months after the closure of the state in New York. According to the union for government officials, speed tests are available at some facilities with outbreaks.
The largest persistent outbreaks are currently occurring at Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Sullivan County, where 148 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past three weeks, and at Coxsackie Correctional in Greene County, with 113 new infections, although there are hundreds of additional infections at about 15 other state facilities.
Marvin Lewis, 64, was released from Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Sullivan County in August after serving 39 years in prison. Woodbourne escaped a major outbreak this past spring, but Lewis said he is now afraid of his older friends he left behind, many of whom live in dormitories with dozens of others.
“Ultimately, Woodbourne would have to take a lick,” he said. “Guys are just scared. Guys are scared and they are looking for relief for the governor, the parole board and the legislature. ”
Since the onset of the pandemic, DOCCS has said it has removed about 3,000 top-floor homes in dormitories to create more space between inmates.
At the Adirondack Correctional Facility, where the state moved about 100 elderly inmates in June, there was recent panic. In late December, a social worker tested positive for COVID-19 and quarantined two dozen prisoners she met, several men at the facility told Gothamist / WNYC.
“We are not safe in this facility, period!” wrote 62-year-old Dexter Bartley in an email sent from his quarantine island in late December. He later tested negative for COVID-19.
John Cavanaugh, who has been serving a life sentence for burglary at the same facility for 12 years, told Gothamist / WNYC in a phone call that he would meet with the infected social worker, but missed the appointment. The Legal Aid Association filed a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of men at the facility on Friday, claiming the state greeted the basic protection not being applied.
“I was very happy,” said the 65-year-old man with HIV. “I’m in a real high-risk category, I’m getting nervous about it, but I’m trying to protect myself to the best of my ability.”
Prisoners who test positive or are exposed to people who test positive are placed in isolation according to DOCCS.
Until the end of December, the state only tested inmates who had COVID-19 symptoms, or those who had been exposed to someone confirmed that they had the virus. A new plan introduced on Dec. 21 includes testing a number of inmates a day from different housing units, though the state has not yet determined how many extra people it would involve.
“During the COVID-19 public health emergency, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision worked in consultation with the NYS Department of Health (DOH) and followed facts and science to protect staff and the inmate,” Rachel said. Connors, spokesman for the department, said.
Data analysis by Jake Dobkin.