Since my initial article for the Shepherd Express several weeks ago on how the Wisconsin Department of Corrections is handling the COVID-19 threat (“SOS Behind Bars"), the DOC has been operating like a mangled ogre in a fashion show: a lot of new looks and poses, but the same old stench and decrepitude.
Every facility has instituted more policies that make it seem like they’re imposing social distancing and trying to reduce potential COVID-19 transmission. Where I am is a good example of the absurd norm transpiring across the system. Each of the nine housing units here has been split in half (including four color-coded quadrants, for some “reason”) so we only go to meals, dayroom, courtyard, and rec with those 32 people on our side of the unit.
Cleaning is being done hourly, more or less. Only four people at a time are allowed in the bathroom (when staff care to pay attention). And more jobs have been suspended to further reduce cross-contamination between units. This would make complete sense if all 60 men on each unit didn't have to share the same small bathroom/shower area and walk up and down the same 6 foot wide hallway dozens of times a day, if it didn’t result in double-digit waiting lines/groups for the bathroom, and if each half of the institution (240 men) didn’t still share the same four story, 3½ foot, unventilated narrow stairway to get to the cafeteria, courtyards, rec and religious services. It’s even more absurd in the 42-man barracks.
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But nothing beats the kitchen: 50 men from every unit working closely together for three meals everyday then carrying whatever they inhale or lands on their clothes back to their respective units, especially their three to seven cellmates.
No Masks for Staff?
What sense does it make to not let me eat or play cards with guys I have to stand next to and face to face with in the bathroom and hallway dozens of times a day, but confine me in a small room with two guys who work for several hours six days a week in a packed kitchen with numerous staff wearing no masks and men from all over the institution? At some prisons, guys are separated on the unit but still all go to rec together, as well.
We’re finally being given masks (a disposable four pack to start, then washable cloth ones to keep for long-term use) and may soon be forced to wear them. But staff are not required to wear masks and very few do—I’ve only seen four staff members wear them and for one day each time and I have similar reports from other facilities. Staff are now being fever-tested at front gates, but once inside, when they aren’t doing their required rounds back and forth across our living areas, they’re commonly bunched together in their workstations and various posts.
In fact, a staff member here who was recently exposed to COVID-19 is still working all of her shifts and wore a mask only once (their defense was she tested negative and isn’t showing symptoms, but as most everyone knows by now, the virus can take days to show up in her system and she can be an asymptomatic carrier). They’ve suspended room searches and most pat downs here, but I have reports of guards at other prisons becoming combative when asked to change gloves between patting people down. And they’re quarantining people with symptoms, but putting them in segregation status (the hole) deters individuals from contacting health services until they feel too sick, which is when increased virus shedding has already made them more contagious.
It’s understandably impossible to fully control the spread of COVID-19 when security staff must come and go in such cramped quarters (add that to the already teetering pile of reasons for criminal justice reform). And some facilities are doing better than others, depending on their leadership and communication. But the DOC’s culture of insincerity is the problem: they routinely seem to put more energy into presenting an image of care and effectiveness rather than caring and being effective. In this case, they’re focusing on intra-unit transmission, where they can do little to nothing because of our overcapacity and community bathrooms, while doing little to nothing meaningful about staff and inter-unit transmission, where they have considerable control.
Where I am and undoubtedly at other institutions (from reports, as well as my personal experience with staff-administration discord at eight other prisons), the overwhelming majority of guards agree that the DOC, as usual, is just doing something to say they’re doing something—and a good number of staff don’t care enough about our health anyways even if the right precautions were being instituted. In turn, their half-ass enforcement of these pandemic policies for us and their lack of adherence to CDC guidelines among themselves further incentivizes many incarcerated people to not take any of it seriously. This is why virtually every day I see numerous people allowed to sneak to meals, courtyard, dayroom, and/or rec with the other half of their units or even completely different units. A bad plan fails because it’s bad, but a really bad plan never achieves the necessary buy-in from those who must implement it.
Early Release for Nonviolent Cases
If the DOC mandated that staff wear masks and, as I stated in my previous article, keep us restricted to our units with bag meals put together and delivered by staff the same way they do during lockdowns (which aren’t uncommon), that would best prevent transmission. But, and again, this would also require releasing thousands of at-risk and low-risk individuals. Minnesota is releasing those with nonviolent cases and less than three months remaining on their sentences.
New Jersey’s governor signed an executive order to temporarily release those with nonviolent cases. Kentucky’s governor commuted 186 sentences and is looking to commute 743 more with less than 6 months remaining. California is expediting parole for 3,500 people with nonviolent crimes and less than 60 days remaining. Iowa did a similar thing for hundreds and other states are still looking at doing their own versions. Even the federal system has been releasing hundreds.
The Wisconsin DOC and Gov. Evers claim they don’t have the power to do such releases without a new law, which the Republican legislature won’t pass. However, there are a variety of options, namely furloughs and/or sentence commutations for low-risk candidates with health complications and anyone with, say, 3-6 months left on their sentences.
Yes, some incarcerated men and women lack the support systems needed to make it if they were let out early amidst current societal pandemic restrictions. But that is no excuse for not releasing the majority of low risk people who do have adequate reentry resources in place. Yes, some early releases would get out and commit crimes that necessitate reimprisonment. But such individuals will do that when they get out soon anyways. More importantly, though, the majority won’t—as demonstrated by the DOC’s own recidivism statistics in normal times, when crime is higher.
And, yes, it’s possible Wisconsin’s carceral communities could avoid the same fate that has befallen nursing homes, cruise ships, and other petri-dish environments for COVID-19. That’s what countless countries were betting on when it was still just ravaging Wuhan. Why take that same chance with this supremely vulnerable population when it can so easily and cheaply be avoided?
One literally has to fabricate reasons to defend the status quo regarding prison conditions and releases
Shannon Ross has been incarcerated in Wisconsin since he was a teenager for the past 16½ years. He manages and composes The Community newsletter, the most widely-read anti-mass incarceration publication in Wisconsin (thecommunitywis.wixsite.com/home).
