I have been asked repeatedly how COVID-19 affected the prison system when it first hit. So, the following is an up close, raw, personal account of how COVID affected me and millions of the incarcerated.
“UNBELIEVABLE!” That’s the only word that I can think of to describe how the COVID-19 pandemic affected and changed the prison system back in 2020. I was at Federal Correction Institute (FCI) Ashland a low-security prison. At first, we didn’t know what was going on. The TVs were suddenly shut off, and we were told to report back to our sleeping areas.
You see, in Low and Camp prisons, inmates don’t sleep in a room with a door attached. They are housed in what’s called “cubicles”. A cubicle is a small square area with a bunk bed, two small lockers, and barely enough space for both inmates to stand up at the same time.
So, we only had our radios to let us know what was going on, and at the onset, the radio stations and news knew very little. All we knew was some airborne virus was circulating, and making people sick all over the world.
On March 20th , around 1pm, the warden and his staff were making rounds throughout the prison, and giving some sort of speech. Once they made it to my unit, the warden was stating that they wanted inmates to sleep in opposite directions: meaning, if the man on the top bunk slept facing east, I had to sleep west or vice versa.
They told us that the TV rooms were closed, and we could only get up, and leave our rooms to use the bathroom. The staff had scared, worried looks on their faces. Some were coughing, and telling us the end of the world was coming. We found out by radio that all prisons across America were on lockdown, and that a few inmates had even died.
After a few days, it was pure hell. I, along with a few other inmates, would crawl on our stomachs at 6pm towards the TV rooms, and sneak and watch CNN and Fox News, to see what the hell was really happening. We were in SHOCK! A few inmates with cell phones from prisons around the country uploaded footage of their living conditions, some showing dead inmates in their rooms, as staff didn’t want to touch them. We saw how down south in one Mississippi state prison, inmates were being locked in their cells with their roommates who had died of this virus called COVID-19. We also saw inmates posting videos where they were coughing up blood, and where the prison staff had rows of dead inmates covered up with sheets in their prison recreation yards. The following day, all inmates and staff were required to wear masks or T-shirts around our faces, and were instructed to cover our whole faces if we coughed.
What in the hell was happening in the world, and in the prison system in America!?
Advocate / Mentor
Leonard E. Love