Genocide in our Prisons

 WA state prisoners are dying of Covid as is true of prisoners throughout the country.  On 12/23/2020 there were 2,294 cases of Covid in the WA state prisons which was close to 10% of all the cases in WA state.  We have all read how people of color and native communities are disproportionately getting Covid and dying. This is both because of their disproportionate work in service jobs with high contact with the public but also because of lifelong substandard exposure to quality healthcare, as well as generally poorer diets leading to many pre existing health conditions rendering them more vulnerable to the virus.  This is magnified under the racism of our prisons.  Due to racism, BIPOC are more frequently charged, tried, sentenced and imprisoned for longer than white people committing the same crimes.  While white people are 72% of the population of WA, they are only 60% of the prison population.  Black people while being 5% of our state population are 18% of the incarcerated, the 11% of Latinos are 13% of those imprisoned, and Native Americans are incarcerated at 2.5X their rate in the population. Similar statistics exist around our country and are in fact much worth in southern states where the majority of prisoners are African American.

Initially the prisoners had no access to masks, ate in crowded cafeterias– in short they were sitting ducks.  Most of the prisons are overcrowded and they can be housed in rooms with 6 prisoners in bunk beds in one room or at least have cell mates.  Masks arrived after infections had already arrived.   The New York Times reported that in CA when San Quentin was ordered to reduce their overpopulated prison population (it was hoped through release of non-violent prisoners) they complied by transferring the prisoners to other state prisons which resulted in the spread of the virus to every prison in that state.  There is little and inadequate access to health care under the best of circumstances in state prisons.  At this point all visitation has been cancelled and prisoners are confined to their cells round the clock (an hour out for exercise every 3 days - showers on schedules) and yet still it spreads.  The guards as well to attend their jobs risk their health and the health of their families.

Imagine being trapped with the virus unable to get away.  Essentially just waiting till you get it.  This is a mass experiment in herd immunity.   This will be survival of the fittest. Those who get it must fight it off or die.  And here again the prisoners of color have higher pre-existing health risks making them at greater risk to die from it.

This is genocide.  Please write to Governor Inslee (or your Governor) that prisoners and guards should receive priority for the vaccine after frontline workers and those in nursing homes (also trapped where they are too easily exposed with pre-existing conditions.)  Of course everyone in our country needs to be vaccinated.  It is part of the ongoing tragedy of the Trump administration that we have so many cases and so few vaccine's.   Since many people feel prisoners deserve to be punished and deserve whatever they get this will be a hard case to make.   But even if one believes they deserve to be punished do they deserve a death sentence for every crime you can be incarcerated for?   Should the racism that disproportionately placed them there also be a death sentence?  There have been calls to protect them by releasing those with non-violent crimes to reduce the number of people at risk in the prisons.  Those proposals have not been acted upon.  

Please act