{"id":10696,"date":"2020-09-17T13:44:18","date_gmt":"2020-09-17T17:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=10696"},"modified":"2020-09-17T14:35:58","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T18:35:58","slug":"essie-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2020\/09\/17\/essie-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"New Essie Justice Group survey exposes dangerous prison and jail conditions during COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new report from Essie Justice Group is exposing the failure of prisons and jails to protect incarcerated people from COVID-19, using survey data from more than 700 people who had loved ones incarcerated in May and June. We helped Essie analyze the survey data and produce their groundbreaking report, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/scans\/Essie_LOTL-report-final.pdf\"><i>Lives on the Line.<\/i><\/a> The report sheds light on aspects of life during the pandemic that cannot be understood through government data alone \u2014 such as incarcerated people\u2019s day-to-day experiences and their degree of vulnerability to the coronavirus.<\/p>\n<p>Key takeaways from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/scans\/Essie_LOTL-report-final.pdf\"><i>Lives on the Line<\/i><\/a> include:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list\">\n<li><b>Incarcerated people are even more vulnerable to the coronavirus than existing government data have shown.<\/b> We\u2019ve used government data to show that many chronic illnesses are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/27\/slowpandemic\/\">more common<\/a> among incarcerated people, increasing their risk of dying from COVID-19. But <i>Lives on the Line<\/i> puts a finer point on the problem. <b>52% of respondents<\/b> to Essie\u2019s survey reported that their loved one has an underlying medical condition that the Center for Disease Control has identified as \u201chigh-risk\u201d for serious complications from COVID-19.<\/li>\n<li><b>Prisons and jails are supplying only meager amounts of hygiene supplies, if any.<\/b> We\u2019ve <a href=\"\/reports\/commissary.html\">previously shown<\/a> how even in normal times, prisons and jails fail to provide sufficient hygiene supplies, forcing incarcerated people and their families to make up the difference by shopping at the commissary. Essie\u2019s survey shows that this dangerous trend has continued during COVID-19: Only 7% of survey respondents said they believed their loved one could access enough soap, disinfectant, and hand sanitizer to protect themselves from the virus. What\u2019s more, many survey respondents explained that \u201calthough their finances were tight, they were the ones sending their loved ones basic sanitation supplies through private vendors.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><b>Many facilities are neglecting to provide medical care.<\/b> 30% of respondents to Essie\u2019s survey said that their loved one did not have any access to critical services like doctor\u2019s visits, mental health care, and medicine. Respondents described their loved ones feeling frustrated and neglected. One respondent testified that nurses in their facility are not giving diabetic residents their insulin shots, \u201crefusing to touch the [incarcerated people] even with gloves on.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><b>Incarceration during COVID-19 has subjected incarcerated people to extreme isolation.<\/b> 50% of survey respondents reported that their loved one had experienced lockdowns (which typically limit access to phones and common areas) at some point during the pandemic. 12% reported that their loved one had been placed in isolation or solitary confinement, which has been described as \u201ctantamount to torture.\u201d Prisons and jails\u2019 liberal use of lockdowns and solitary confinement is isolating people and eroding family ties: 11.7% of respondents to Essie\u2019s survey said that they had not been able to contact their loved one <i>at all<\/i> during the pandemic.<\/li>\n<li><b>Many people are still incarcerated during the pandemic despite having safe homes to return to.<\/b> Some states (like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whsv.com\/content\/news\/Va-lawmakers-approve-amendment-to-allow-inmate-releases-amid-COVID-19-569887541.html?ref=541\">Virginia<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bctv.org\/2020\/06\/24\/pennsylvania-reduced-prison-population-by-record-setting-3471-since-march-1\/\">Pennsylvania<\/a>) have made consideration for release dependent on whether someone has a viable \u201chome plan.\u201d But 92% of survey respondents said that their loved one has a home to go to if they are let out, suggesting that many incarcerated people with homes to go to are facing unnecessary obstacles to being considered for release.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The limitations of publicly-available criminal justice data have constrained attempts to understand how prisons and jails are responding to the pandemic. But the voices of people with incarcerated loved ones are filling critical information gaps. Essie\u2019s survey data confirms some of our worst fears about the unwillingness of prisons and jails to protect their residents, even through basic measures like providing adequate supplies of soap. <i>Lives on the Line<\/i> adds important context to the story of how criminal justice decisionmakers allowed their facilities to become hotbeds of COVID-19, and how these facilities have offloaded the burden of caring for incarcerated people onto struggling family members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Survey data collected from people with incarcerated loved ones confirms some of our worst fears about the treatment of people behind bars during the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[46],"class_list":["post-10696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10696"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10699,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10696\/revisions\/10699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10696"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=10696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}