Being incarcerated greatly increases the risk of contracting COVID-19. In fact, prisoners are 550% more likely to contract the virus and 300% more likely to die from it.
These facts do not appear to alarm South Carolina Department of Corrections prison officials.
SCDC denies life-saving drugs to women incarcerated at the Camille Graham Correctional Institution. It is also routinely allowing women to be exposed to the virus, putting them in unhygienic living conditions. Prison staff are not monitoring life-threatening symptoms among patients.
Nothing substantial is being done to prevent the spread of the virus on SCDC facilities.
On January 27, the Party for Socialism and Liberation joined the Black Liberation Fund, an external link from the organization Jailhouse Lawyers Speak and members of the family of women incarcerated in Camille Graham, outside the SCDC. A press conference was held to highlight the inhuman conditions faced by women at the site.
According to family members, women incarcerated at Camille Graham Correctional Facility need life-saving medications, ranging from insulin to mental health medications to anticonvulsant medications.
Erica Anderson, who is incarcerated in Camille Graham, has been denied mental health medication since she tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, she faced excruciating withdrawal symptoms. Instead of monitoring their health closely, SCDC put these women in isolation, with even a roommate.
Morgan Anderson, a local student activist and daughter of Erica Anderson, explained: “They are not allowed to bring their things, they are not allowed to have paper or pen and they were not giving people their medicine.” She continued, “My mom told me about an incident where she met someone who was not getting insulin and her body was starting to shut down.”
This is not the first time that Camille Graham has appeared on the news for abusing and neglecting inmates. The facility has a long history of abusing women trapped there.
In 2019, Dr. Pamela Crawford, a psychiatrist who worked with inmates in Camille Graham, testified in front of a Corrections oversight panel on the heinous abuse she saw being carried out against patients with mental health problems. She documented the testimony of patients with acute mental health crises being punished, as well as women with different disabilities being placed in solitary confinement for long periods of time.
The South Carolina Department of Corrections is known for the many human rights abuses faced by people incarcerated at its 21 facilities.
Latisha Imarra, founder and director of the Black Liberation Fund, whose husband David “Shango” Ballard is incarcerated at the Perry Correctional Institution, said that her husband had been subjected to racist verbal abuse, as well as physical abuse at the hands of prison officers inside Perry.
She explained: “He was pressured and had his dreadlocks shaved, then thrown into solitary confinement, because he complained about the verbal abuse he was subjected to.”
“They do this because they don’t care. They do not regard prisoners as human beings worthy of basic human rights. ”Said Kym Smith, external representative for Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, when asked why SCDC would allow conditions within its facilities to go from bad to worse.
As COVID’s numbers increase across the country, it becomes obvious that the struggle must continue for the women incarcerated in Camille Graham and for all those incarcerated in South Carolina.