sign the petition: demand medically vulnerable women are released!
John,
In just the past week, two women have died from COVID-19 in federal prison facilities.
Rebecca Marie Adams and Bree Eberbaugh were both incarcerated at FPC Alderson in West Virginia.1 These women will never get to go home. John, their deaths were preventable.
Incarceration anywhere, including at minimum security level facilities like FPC Alderson, should never equate to a death sentence. And yet, the Bureau of Prisons(BOP) has reported 50,000 infections and 279 deaths since the beginning of COVID-19.2 There have been 3,000 infections and 2 deaths in just the past week!3 And we know from sources inside facilities and expert witnesses that BOP’s reports do not reflect the extent of this humanitarian crisis.
BOP has the power to grant medically vulnerable people compassionate release or to allow them to finish their sentences on home confinement. And yet, only about 5 percent of the people in federal prison have been granted release to home confinement,4 and only 36 compassionate release requests were granted between March 2020 and June 2021.5 These low release numbers are deplorable, and even more so for Black people who are more likely to be denied release because of racist risk assessment algorithms.6
This is why in partnership with The National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, we’re calling on the BOP to release all medically vulnerable people from federal prisons immediately.
COVID in prisons is a death sentence. release people now.John, thousands of people released to home confinement under the CARES Act passed by Congress in March 2020 have already successfully rejoined their communities. They’ve been able to get jobs, start school, help take care of elderly parents and children. In fact, home confinement under the CARES Act has had a 99% success rate.7 This is further proof that people will always have a better chance at surviving and thriving outside of cages and when surrounded by community and chosen family.
BOP has the tools to release people at their disposal, and yet, federal prisons are currently experiencing the highest rates of COVID-19 since March 2020.
We’re being told that women at FPC Alderson are being denied access to tests altogether. If people report symptoms, they are being thrown into an isolation unit without a positive test, likely to keep infection report numbers lower than they are. Women with active infections are still being forced to cook food in the kitchen due to a lack of staff. Staff is not wearing proper PPE, and women are being given 1 mask every few weeks and denied access to medications. We’ve even been told that a woman was denied treatment or admission to a hospital before she died.
And, John, this inhumane treatment isn't unique to Alderson. We’ve also heard from women at FCI Danbury in Connecticut that ALL of the women in the Camp are currently infected, despite reports that say only half of the women are.
The facilities were on total lockdown for over a week with zero access to phones, computers, the law or leisure library, and classrooms. As a result, desperate families have no way to know whether their incarcerated loved one is safe or healthy: Their only choice is to wait in agony as news is shared through the rumor mill.
take action: help stop the outbreak at womens federal prisons
John, this is all happening nearly two years into a national health emergency where we have affirmed that jails and prisons are among the most significant battlefields of the pandemic.
Not only is social distancing inside prisons next to impossible, but people who are incarcerated are also at greater risk of serious complications or death from the virus because of health issues caused and exacerbated by conditions and lack of access to healthcare and services inside prisons.
John, if we’re going to keep people safe during the pandemic, and make any sort of meaningful impact towards undoing the harm of years of racialized mass incarceration, we must release people immediately.
We can’t sit and wait while people’s lives are at stake.
say no to execution by covid-19
Until Justice is Real,
Scott, Rashad, Arisha, Malachi, Megan, Ernie, Palika, Ariel, Madison, Trevor, Erick, Ana, Kristiana, McKayla and the Color Of Change team
References:
1. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/345795?t=9&akid=52815%2E4731121%2E0cVL_B
2. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/345796?t=11&akid=52815%2E4731121%2E0cVL_B
3. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/345796?t=13&akid=52815%2E4731121%2E0cVL_B
4. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/340899?t=15&akid=52815%2E4731121%2E0cVL_B
5. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/345797?t=17&akid=52815%2E4731121%2E0cVL_B
6. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/345798?t=19&akid=52815%2E4731121%2E0cVL_B
7. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/345799?t=21&akid=52815%2E4731121%2E0cVL_B
