Locked up in a coronavirus-stricken prison, Claude Johnson was concerned about his health if his parole was denied again.
After spending more than three decades behind bars, the 60-year-old was dealing with the death of a good friend of COVID-19 at another prison. Johnson had witnessed the near impossibility of social distancing at the Fishkill Correctional Facility in Dutchess County and the lack of protective gear given to an imprisoned individual as he nursed himself back to health after dealing with a likely case.
“I was concerned for my own self,” he said. “I was to the point where I felt like when I went to the parole board in October of 2020, I was saying, ‘If I don’t get granted parole, there’s a possibility that I may die in prison due to COVID-19.
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Prisons are hotspots for COVID-19, and criminal justice advocates are calling for reform to minimize ongoing spread.
The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) only recently began testing asymptomatic prisoners. Horwitz explains how this change in testing revealed the drastic increase.
“The sudden increase as a result of this change validates what we have been warning about for months, which is that these infections are going unchecked, undocumented and untreated in DOCCS facilities. And that is a totally unacceptable outcome.”
Horwitz is also worried about the virus spreading to the community, as one documented case in Greene County spread from a prison to a nursing home. Correction officers’ health is also at risk. About 65% of them at one prison reported being unsatisfied with DOCCS’s response to COVID-19. Horwitz suggests a different approach.
In December, the number of New York State prison inmates who tested positive jumped from about 1,800 to 3,100, Horwitz said.
Since the pandemic began, the coronavirus claimed the lives of 24 incarcerated individuals in state prisons, including six in the last three weeks, and six staff members of the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
A call to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision wasn t immediately returned.
The positivity rate between Dec. 24 and 31 is 14.6%, according to Misshula.
To put that number in perspective, a geographical area is designated as an orange zone by New York state if there s a 4% infection rate. These numbers don t include the correction officers.
Coronavirus behind bars: Advocates say cases surging in NY prisons pix11.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pix11.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
NEW YORK â Over 2,000 New York prisoners have tested positive for coronavirus since the onset of the pandemic, state data shows â yet continued confusion over how the Correction Department reports COVID-19 cases has led to fervent calls for more transparency.
The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision issues daily reports on the number of people behind bars who have tested negative one time, have tested positive, or have pending test results, among other parameters.
Yet those reports do not disclose the total number of tests conducted, according to a spokesman for the agency.
Without providing the total number of tests, itâs impossible to discern the virusâs positivity rate in the prisons based only public data.