In increasing outbreaks in about a third of the state’s 52 correctional units, nine incarcerated people died over a three-week period and more than 1,000 incarcerated people were infected at that time, according to a WNYC / Gothamist analysis of State Department data. of Corrections and Community Supervision.
The rate of new infections in prisons is now double that of the general public, the analysis shows. With the increase in COVID-19 cases and the imminent threat of a new, more infectious COVID-19 variant, advocates and public health experts warn that prioritizing incarcerated people and prison officers for vaccination and releasing vulnerable prisoners is now more urgent than that never.
“You have men and women in our prison system who are academics, pioneers, educators, teachers and many of them fell ill in prison for three or four decades,” said José Saldana, with Releasing Aged People in Prison. The group believes the situation is critical and, for several months, they have called on Governor Andrew Cuomo to release people who are already eligible for parole, or within a year of their release date, or who have serious health conditions. and are at risk of dying if they catch the virus.
Saldana served 38 years in prison and was released in 2018. His friend died in COVID-19 prison over the summer, and another friend, who is elderly and incarcerated at the Great Meadow Correctional, has just been diagnosed this week.
“They survived the HIV health crisis. They survived the hepatitis health crisis. Tuberculosis outbreaks, ”he said. “They have survived so many things and we cannot expect them to survive that.”
The governor was asked whether a wider group of people would be released from prison, given the increase in cases, but his office did not respond. The Department of Corrections and Community Oversight (DOCCS) continued a policy implemented in the spring in response to the pandemic of releasing some people within 90 days of their official release date and those being detained for technical probation violations. Since mid-August, 1,282 people have been released earlier, less than the 2,268 people released earlier in the previous months, according to statements by the Department of Corrections.
In total, 27 people imprisoned in state prisons have died since the pandemic began. So far, the death rate remains lower than that of the general population, according to a Gothamist / WNYC analysis. But the current increase in deaths – nine in three weeks – is worrying for public health experts.
“The death rate is likely to increase in prison, simply because we are talking about an aging population, where there would be a higher prevalence of underlying diseases,” said Daliah Heller of Vital Strategies, the global public health initiative, which has returned its focus for COVID-19 in prisons during the outbreak. She said the imminent prospect of the new, more contagious variant of COVID-19 appearing inside a prison made the situation even more dire.
“The urgency with this new variety nowhere where people live together like prisons is huge,” she said.
The governor’s office has not released guidance on when correctional and prison officials can be vaccinated against COVID-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control, correction officers fall into the category of an essential worker and should be next in line to be vaccinated after healthcare professionals and those living in long-term care facilities.
James Miller, a spokesman for the union representing prison officials in New York, said there was no indication of when vaccines would occur.
“I don’t have a deadline for it to be available to police officers working on the premises,” he said.
A DOCCS spokeswoman said the agency is working with the state Department of Health on a vaccination schedule. A spokesman for the state health department declined to say when prisoners would be vaccinated and said prison officials would be vaccinated “when they were eligible”.
While the first wave of COVID-19 infections mainly hit prisons in the state, such as Sing Sing, this fall infections began to increase at facilities across the state, starting with Elmira in Chemung County and Greene Correctional Facility in County Greene, followed by outbreaks in more than a dozen other prisons.
Guard tower and barbed wire fence outside Sing Sing in Ossining, NY
Mark Lennihan / AP / Shutterstock
“It reflects what is happening in the community,” said Sophie Gebreselassie, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society’s Prisoner Rights Project. Prison and civilian agents can take the virus to prisons, making prisoners sick, and can pick it up in prisons and bring it out, fueling outbreaks in the neighboring community, as was the case in Greene County, according to officials. locations.
“This is one of the many reasons why New Yorkers should be concerned with what is going on behind the prison walls,” she said. “The virus does not respect the barbed wire.”
In an attempt to keep the virus out of prison, visitors are currently not allowed. However, employees entering and leaving prisons on a daily basis are not required to take the test regularly, although a voluntary test plan is due to begin on January 11, about ten months after closing across New York State. And, according to the union of state prison officers, rapid tests are available at some outbreak facilities.
Currently, the largest ongoing outbreaks are occurring at Woodbourne Correctional Center 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 113 new infections. hundreds of additional infections in about 15 other facilities in the state.
Marvin Lewis, 64, was released in August from the Woodbourne Correctional Center in Sullivan County, after serving 39 years in prison. Woodbourne avoided a major outbreak last spring, but Lewis said he now fears for his older friends he left behind, many of whom live in dormitory-style environments with dozens of others.
“Eventually, Woodbourne would have to beat up,” he said. “Guys are just scared. The guys are scared and are looking for some relief for the governor, the parole board and the legislature. ”
Since the start of the pandemic, the DOCCS said it has removed about 3,000 bunks in the dorms to create more distance between inmates.
In Adirondack Correctional Facility, where the state transferred about 100 elderly inmates in June, there was a recent scare. In late December, a social worker tested positive for COVID-19, sending two dozen inmates she met with to quarantine, several men at the facility told Gothamist / WNYC.
“We are not safe in this installation, period!” wrote Dexter Bartley, 62, in an email sent from his quarantine cell in late December. He subsequently tested negative for COVID-19.
John Cavanaugh, who is serving 12 years in prison for theft at the same facility, told Gothamist / WNYC in a phone call that he had an appointment with the infected social worker, but missed the appointment. The Legal Aid Society filed a federal class action on behalf of the men at the facility on Friday, claiming that the hailed state did not implement basic protections.
“I was very lucky,” said the 65-year-old man who has HIV. “I’m in a real risk category, I’m nervous about it, but I try to protect myself as best as I can.”
Inmates with a positive test or who are exposed to people with a positive result are placed in isolation, according to the DOCCS.
By the end of December, the state had tested only inmates who showed symptoms of COVID-19 or those who were exposed to someone confirmed to have the virus. A new plan put in place on December 21 includes testing “a number of individuals incarcerated” each day in different housing units, although the state has not specified how many additional people this would entail.
“During the public health emergency COVID-19, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision worked in consultation with the NYS Department of Health (DOH) and followed up on facts and science to protect staff and incarcerated people,” said the Department spokeswoman Rachel Connors.
Data analysis by Jake Dobkin.