In November 2020, I stood in my cell, behind thick iron bars, listening as the guard talked. I was captivated by the madness escaping his lips. “You should feel lucky to be in prison right now,” he told me. “You are much safer in here than out in society.”
Unable to accept this, I challenged his claim. “What stats have you been reading?” I asked him. “Prisoners are five times more likely to contract the virus than people in society. That’s data proven by scientific facts.”
After the outbreak, administrators have continued to weaponize COVID-19 safety protocols against those in their care.
Unphased, the guard doubled down. “Only about 1 percent of prisoners even contract the virus,” he replied with confidence.
“You should go home and Google the numbers at San Quentin,” I said, “or any of the other prisons across America,” where infection rates are much higher than on the outside. Not to mention, almost all of the top COVID-19 clusters in America are prisons."
It’s hard to believe this guard thought prisoners should feel lucky to be stuck in a place where our lives are held in the hands of people who are so uninformed.
A month later, the prison where I reside, Monroe Correctional Complex in Washington State, was in the middle of a devastating outbreak of COVID-19 that would consume the whole prison. Out of 170 prisoners on my living unit, only nine would escape contracting the virus. I was among those who was not infected.
We were hauled off in small groups to be relocated at some point during the outbreak, in a move the Washington Department of Corrections claimed was for our own protection.
After the outbreak, administrators have continued to weaponize COVID-19 safety protocols against those in their care. Although nearly all of the prisoners here now have antibodies from contracting the virus, prisoners are still bullied into following unrealistic “protective” guidelines. These guidelines restrict our ability to communicate with loved ones, exercise, and participate in self-betterment programs.
Before the outbreak last year, it was almost impossible for prisoners at the Monroe Correctional Complex to acquire necessary simple protective equipment like masks. But since the outbreak, at a time when masks are less crucial to our health, they are now being doled out regularly and prisoners are threatened with punitive measures for not wearing them properly.
Prisoners were even told in a recent memo that masks are to be worn outdoors and during heavy exercise, without any exception. This mandate discourages many prisoners from running and doing the few exercises left at our disposal, as weight rooms have been closed since March 2020. The more society starts to reopen, it seems, the more restrictive the rules become behind prison walls.
And the weaponization of safety measures isn’t limited to the use of masks. Social distancing has also become a way for guards to target prisoners. In a place where remaining six feet apart is virtually impossible, this expectation exposes prisoners to being bullied by overzealous guards intent on keeping us in our place, literally and figuratively.
Prisoners have been forced to experience unthinkable conditions over the past year, in the name of our safety. And yet none of it has made us any safer. If conditions can be loosened in society, it is time for the state system to do the same for prisoners. Let’s start constructing a plan to return visits with loved ones, self-help and educational programs, opening the barber shop, weight rooms, and the countless other areas within prisons that offer positive outlets for prisoners to serve their sentence in a productive way.
COVID-19 has given prison authorities a free pass to oppress, abuse, and over-police prisoners, and it needs to stop. We need to vaccinate prisoners and restore their rights. It’s not too late to bring reality and basic human rights back into the picture.