The Cost of Incarceration
At California’s San Quentin State Prison, just a ten-minute drive from my home in Point Richmond, a massive failure of our public health and criminal justice systems is rapidly unfolding. Over the course of the past month, the maximum-security facility went from zero reported coronavirus cases to more than 1,200. That’s a third of the prison population. Two prisoners have died in just over a week. At least one of them tested positive for the virus.
There is little that those incarcerated in San Quentin can do to protect themselves. As we reported in the Journal this week, prisoners are confined almost entirely indoors, cannot social distance from one another, and often avoid reporting symptoms of illness for fear of being quarantined in solitary confinement. More than 20 men incarcerated at the prison are now on hunger strike to protest conditions there, and advocates are urgently calling for the early release of medically vulnerable and elderly prisoners, as well as those nearing eligibility for parole.
The health threat posed by Covid-19 adds to the long list of environmental risks faced by prisoners in the US, including exposure to contaminated water, polluted air, and extreme heat. As the Journal revealed in its 2017 investigation “America’s Toxic Prisons,” mass incarceration in the US has vast repercussions for both public health and the environment across the country, repercussions that are disproportionately borne by Black, Brown, and low-income people.
Addressing the steep social, environmental, and health toll of prisons and jails will require rethinking mass incarceration in this country and re-envisioning our criminal justice system at large. What better time to begin that process than now, as our nation — where freedom continues to be more of a privilege than a right — prepares to celebrate its 244th Independence Day.
Zoe Loftus-Farren
Managing Editor, Earth Island Journal
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