Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/coronavirus/page/7/)
On July 11, 2019, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy used the power of his pen to seize a unique political opportunity: putting his signature on one of the most ground-breaking laws in the country limiting the use of solitary confinement for juveniles.
Across the world, we are all racing to save the most vulnerable in our societies from the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the United States, however, we are leaving some of our children trapped with nowhere to turn, nowhere to run.
The last will and testament came in an email, one most likely monitored by the state. It came from a prisoner, incarcerated for decades at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, better known as Angola. He composed and sent it shortly after the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association and the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DOC) opened a shuttered camp previously notorious for being a site of solitary confinement and violence.
I've seen far too many times how crisis and death unite people, but that unity and common thread that binds all people together is often very short lived, even in a place like Angola. Ranking officials, like Major Bellamy, says "Its us against them," during roll call. Of course other security, who perhaps take offense to that statement, always share their anger, frustration, and anxiety. But when the Coronavirus hit Angola, especially here in Ash dormitory, things began to change very quickly. The usual communication between security and the offender population changed instantly.
Caliph Muab-El entered the prison system at 15 as the youngest person in Wisconsin to be tried as an adult after being convicted of a shooting. He walked out 15 years later with nowhere to go and no guidance on how to acclimate back into his community.
(This column is dedicated to the memory of Paul DeMuro, who passed earlier this week from a non-COVID-19 related illness. Paul was a longtime leader and mentor to so many in the work to reduce incarceration and improve the lives of young people and families in the justice system.)
On April 1, Kenneth Moore, a youth development representative at Washington, D.C.’s juvenile justice agency died of COVID-19. Kenneth was the first correctional officer in the nation to succumb to the virus. Today, many more staff and youth inside correctional facilities are sick and dying. I had the privilege of helping lead the District’s juvenile justice agency, the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS), between 2005 and 2010.
First he lost his job as a shift manager at McDonald’s. Then the movie theater, the bowling alley, all the places he spent time in began to close.
As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases inside New York prisons continues to rise, the Legal Aid Society of New York recently announced 20 emergency clemency applications for inmates with medical conditions that put them at high risk for complications from the virus.
Theirs was supposed to be the kind of family people dream of having; a father, mother, son and daughter living in domestic harmony. Instead it became a nightmare.
Over the course of the COVID-19 crisis, we’ve heard a lot about curves. Graphs show terrifying projections of how infection rates will spike and strain our health care system if we don’t take dramatic steps to slow the virus’ spread.