“Why’d it take this long?” a prisoner asked as we sat in the living unit dayroom of the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, Washington. “There’s been a vaccine available for almost a year, and now the governor wants to step up and tell these guards to get vaccinated? We’re always a last thought. I’m tired of these guards playing with my life. They should’ve been forced to do this long ago. Who else can get us sick besides them?”
I’ve heard guards claim a sense of pride in being frontline workers; however, a frontline job requires sacrifice for the greater good.
Another prisoner joined in: “This is madness. Not only do they continue to put all of us at risk, but they continue to restrict us from seeing our families. It’s been almost two years, and regular visits don’t look to be [anywhere] in sight. Yet, these guards go home to their families every day.”
Sitting in the dayroom, I listened to their concerns and saw the frustration spread across their faces. Prisoners across the United States, like me, share this frustration.
People who are incarcerated have experienced a grueling seventeen months of COVID-19, no different in some ways, but very different in other ways, from what people are grappling with on the outside.
When our friends get sick, if they’re lucky, they get dragged off to solitary confinement or placed in prison gyms packed with other sick prisoners. If they’re not lucky, they lose their lives. Prisoners and guards alike have died due to the mishandling of COVID-19 by the Department of Corrections (DOC). As prisoners, we have no choice but to sit by while the DOC continues to make one mistake after another, all of which can have had severe effects on our mental, physical, and emotional health.
Now with the Delta variant on the rise, prisoners are once again at the mercy of those meant to care for us: prison guards. Many have refused to get vaccinated and this is no surprise. They have long placed their personal beliefs and political agendas ahead of our wellbeing, and now the consequences of their actions—or rather, inactions—are more likely than ever to be life-altering.
On August 9, Washington Governor Jay Inslee issued Proclamation 21-14, which requires most state employees to get vaccinated for COVID-19 by October 18 as a condition of employment. He’s one of many governors across the country to do so—other states include California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
However, aside from Washington, the other states allow prison staff to forgo the vaccine as long as they are willing to do weekly testing. These exceptions make these statewide “vaccine mandates” spineless and do little to protect prisoners, staff, and surrounding communities.
As incarcerated people, we lack the ability to social distance and have few to no other options to effectively protect ourselves from COVID-19, which is why we need our leaders to stop the spread at the source by requiring vaccination for the people who come and go from the prisons—guards and staff.
As Dr. Joseph Bick, director of health care services at California Correctional Health Care Services, told a California court, “Given the rapid and ongoing spread of the Delta variant in California, mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for institutional staff is necessary to provide adequate health protection for incarcerated persons.”
In light of Dr. Bick’s statement, echoed by countless other medical professionals, it’s difficult to understand how every governor hasn’t placed vaccination mandates on everyone who works in prisons and jails across the country. These mandates must be placed without an opt-out clause based on a weekly COVID-19 test, something we all know isn’t a failsafe in protecting incarcerated people or other staff who work in prisons.
Medical professionals have said, time and time again, that if the virus enters a prison or jail, the risk of a large-scale outbreak is high. Yet, prison staff have continued to resist being vaccinated. Since Governor Inslee’s statement was released, prison guards in the facility where I live and other state-employed staff have been extremely vocal about the mandate.
“I’ll be leaving in a few weeks. I didn’t go this long without taking the vaccine only to be told later what’s going into my body,” one guard said to me.
A prisoner’s staff boss said, “You guys better start looking for new jobs around the prison, because there is no way I'm getting vaccinated.” This supervisor can be seen in the prison where I live wearing a shirt that says, “my body, my choice” with a syringe crossed out and a large U.S. flag drawing in the background.
Guard unions across the country have taken a stand. A representative of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which represents about 28,000 members, told CalMatters: “A mandatory vaccination order should be avoided, particularly because infection rates remain extremely low and less intrusive means of addressing the challenges of COVID-19 have not been exhausted.”
These ignorant comments—and the potential consequences that follow—left me wondering: If guards and staff refuse the vaccine, would prisoners be the ones to suffer? Would the DOC allow prisoner safety to be sidelined in the name of the guards’ individual preferences and neglect their responsibility to protect those who are unable to avoid contact with them?
I’ve heard guards claim a sense of pride in being frontline workers; however, a frontline job requires sacrifice for the greater good. It is no longer “your body, your choice;” it’s about the safety of the people you have chosen to protect. If Washington’s vaccine mandate takes effect, it will be the first time since the pandemic began that prisoners in Washington would be afforded the protection we have needed all along.
On the other hand, if the mandates are not taken seriously, incarcerated folks will once again be vulnerable to contracting COVID-19, especially the more contagious Delta variant. Currently, the prison in which I live is going through a lockdown due to a COVID-19 outbreak.
The fact that it’s taken this long for a handful of states to take action is troubling and a clear reminder that many citizens in this country, especially those of us who are behind bars, are nothing short of afterthoughts when it comes to public health and decency.