Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/covid-19/page/7/)
As one of the first states to confront the ghastly reality of the COVID-19 pandemic, New Jersey prepared for what many saw as inevitable: an outbreak in its jails and prisons.
E had called to give a heads up.
“I may not be in contact for a few weeks,” he said. The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) was transferring people from his prison, SCI Rockview in Bellefonte, Pa., to other prisons throughout the state.
The public won’t know their names, their ages nor why they were behind bars. They won’t hear their interaction with the person whose job is to check them for symptoms weekly. Nor will they hear the thoughts running through their minds as they sit in their cell, isolated from the unprecedented chaos outside.
From Louisiana to New York, juvenile detention centers are reporting more staff and children testing positive for COVID-19. Incarcerated youth are extremely vulnerable to infection. We know these numbers will only continue to get worse unless youth justice systems act immediately. Releasing youth from locked facilities where social distancing is impossible or avoiding sending them there in the first place is critical. This is why even those of us who have experience running such facilities are calling for action.
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.