Imprisoned with The Coronavirus in New York: Misinformation, Inadequate Resources, and a Possible Death Sentence

Imagine being locked in a cage and spit on by someone who may have the coronavirus; stripped of hand sanitizer, soap, and toilet paper while living in a hall with dozens of strangers; or fed misinformation and facing punishment for publicizing your dreadful conditions. This is the life that some New York State prisoners have been facing during the coronavirus epidemic.

As of May 27th, 498 inmates in New York State have tested positive and 16 have died from the coronavirus. Even more worrisome, there are likely hundreds more who are infected. Of the 52 prisons in New York, 34 of them have tested less than 1% of their population and 8 that haven’t tested anyone. Below is a map of all 52 New York State prisons and the number of coronavirus tests conducted in each of them.

The few tests that have been given, have often been administered too late. Of those who were tested in prison, over 45% came back positive whereas for the rest of New York less than 19% came back positive. The lack and lateness of testing endanger the correctional officers and those who are incarcerated. Below is a map of the number of positive coronavirus tests in each prison in New York.

The actions taken to prevent the coronavirus from spreading in prisons are just as atrocious as the absence of testing. One change implemented at the Fishkill Correctional Facility, where over 30% of incarcerated coronavirus deaths in NYS have occurred, is that instead of sitting next to each other in the dining hall, inmates now sit one chair—a mere arm-length—apart. Useless policies like this will not stop the spread of the coronavirus, especially when healthcare supplies are being withheld from prisoners. Many correctional officers at Fishkill have been stealing the hand sanitizer that has finally been delivered to the prison, while the units of 35 inmates only receive at max two bottles of watered-down bleach each day to clean their quarters with. Even the units that are quarantined are not properly cleaned or given additional disinfecting supplies.

The correctional officers’ control of information exacerbates the dangers of the coronavirus. The names of infected correctional officers and inmates are withheld from inmates- even if they were in direct contact with them. Over a month ago a contact told us that his neighbor was removed from his cell and that his inquiries into why the neighbor was removed or whether he was still alive weren’t answered. It took a member of Court Watch to inform him weeks later that his neighbor had died in the hospital. More troubling, the prison nurses are hiding inmates’ body temperatures from them. A contact saw 35 people contract the coronavirus and only 2 reported temperatures above 98 degrees. One of the inmates had a temperature of 105 degrees but instead of being sent to a hospital, he was sent back to his room and threatened that if he spoke to anyone, he would be sent to second-stage quarantining, where he could not shower, call loved-ones, or have access to his personal property.

The reason that we seldom hear about the inadequacies and corruption of prisons in their handling of the coronavirus is that correctional officers control inmates’ speech to outside sources. Several weeks ago, a member of Court Watch received a physical letter from a contact in prison, instead of the prison's online communication service, because he was afraid that the correctional officers who read the online messages would punish him for relating his experience of the prison’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Another contact said that by speaking out about the current conditions in the prison, he risks being placed into isolation or worse.  

Every story gathered from those who are incarcerated entails risks for those telling them, so make sure that their words don’t go unheard. Contact your local prison, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision at (518) 457-8126 or on Facebook, and Governor Cuomo at (518) 474-8390 or on Twitter to keep our prisons accountable. Also, sign your name to the NYCLU’s petition to Governor Cuomo demanding that he take immediate steps to protect people in New York jails and prisons. As one contact who is incarcerated said, “You can’t watch a bomb explode and then try to contain the explosion.” Let’s implement adequate testing and spread-reduction measures to stop the coronavirus before it completely explodes.