No one is safe from Coronavirus, but for those people being held in correctional facilities, the risk of contracting the virus is much higher. Seven men in the New York City jail complex told HuffPost they are afraid to die in the filthy environment. Here is Angelina Chapin on her story about inmates on Rikers Island.
What was the seed for this story?
This idea was a follow-up to a piece I wrote about the general coronavirus outbreak on Rikers Island with my colleague, Jessica Schulberg. We had reported on how the disease was spreading at a rapid rate inside the jail, eight times faster than in New York City, since people are packed together without masks, hand sanitizer or decent medical care. People I interviewed said there was a quarantine unit for people who tested positive for COVID-19 or who had symptoms. But I suspected that system was a mess, and that people who had the disease were being mixed with those who didn’t or who were waiting for their results.
How did you report it out since it's not like you can go to the jail?
I had been reaching out to family members of incarcerated people, and one woman said she was really worried about her brother on Rikers who had chest pains and flu-like symptoms. I asked her to connect us, which isn’t an easy thing to do from jail. I couldn’t call Bernard, and wasn’t sure if he could call me since I wasn’t on his approved list of numbers.
So we settled on this: the next time Bernard called, his sister would patch me through on a three-way call. He told me about being held in a quarantine unit with filthy conditions, and being kept alongside guys with the coronavirus even though he didn’t have his test results yet. I asked him to pass on my number to others in his unit, and in one day, six more people called me.
I had to be really efficient with my questions, since the calls time out after 15 minutes. Some people could call me back, but only if they had more money on their account. I stayed glued to my phone so I wouldn’t miss anyone.
What was most challenging?
It was difficult to try and describe a place I couldn’t see for myself. Rikers is a huge complex with eight facilities. I was trying to picture what it was like inside one unit inside one of those buildings, based on people’s anecdotes. I verified anything I reported with several different people, like the fact that they weren’t getting meals on a regular basis. But I had to push the guys calling me to be very specific, even though we had such limited time. They would say things like “It’s dirty and disgusting in here” and I would ask for examples.
One guy described how there were collard greens smeared on the wall from someone’s lunch, and another guy described a fight that was happening while we were on the phone between guards and some incarcerated men. Those visceral accounts helped me understand and write about the chaotic and destitute conditions they were living in.
Anything you want to add?
I’m not sure I was able to convey the desperation in these men’s voices. Many of these guys come from tough backgrounds and have been through a lot, but they plead with me to tell their stories. They sound panicked and helpless. They have no idea whether they’ll be treated by doctors, whether they’ll be transferred to yet another building, or as one guy put it, go home in body bags. All they know is that they are at the epicenter of an outbreak killing thousands of Americans, with no way of protecting themselves.
Being locked up is already so dehumanizing, but this pandemic has made incarcerated people feel like nobody cares if they live or die. It’s important to remember that many of the guys on Rikers, and in prisons and jails more generally, are there because of technical parole violations or low-level offenses. These aren’t serial killers being exposed to a potentially deadly virus. These are people who wouldn’t pose any threat if they were released, with families who are worried sick about whether they’ll come home alive.
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