I Donât Want To Die Here : One Woman s Experience With COVID While Incarcerated
South Middlesex Correctional Center in Framingham, Mass., is seen in this March 1, 2021, file photo.
Andrea Wolanin / GBH
Then, she got COVID-19.
âItâs been horrible. Itâs been hard mentally on me and the other women in here,â Nevarez said, speaking by phone from South Middlesex Correctional Center (SMCC) in Framingham, Mass., where she had been in pre-release for the last two years. She served seven years before that at Massachusetts Correctional Institution â Framingham.
As has happened since the start of the pandemic in prisons across the country, a COVID-19 outbreak hit SMCC at the end of January. In total, Nevarez and 11 other women at the facility â almost half of the population in the minimum security unit at SMCC â eventually tested positive for the disease.
Little noticed law sets off court fight over stateâs responsibility to release inmates to reduce COVID risks
Lawyers for incarcerated people have begun seeking release of dozens of people
By Andrea Estes Globe Staff,Updated February 9, 2021, 6:02 p.m.
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Language quietly added to the state budget in November has given hope to Massachusetts prison inmates that they will be able to get out early to lessen their risk of getting COVID.
So far, the state Department of Correction has refused early release for any of the 6,500 prisoners to reduce the risk of COVID-19, which has sickened hundreds and killed more than 20 inmates. The only exceptions have been paroles granted to some gravely ill prisoners for conditions unrelated to the pandemic.
The state’s Department of Corrections will temporarily suspend operations at MCI-Shirley and South Middlesex Correctional Center in Framingham within the next 60 days, impacting nearly 200 inmates between the two campuses.
The entrance of the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Shirley, Mass. (Gretchen Ertl/AP)
The Massachusetts Department of Correction will suspend operations at two prisons, saying the decision was driven by low prisoner population. The department said it will also begin releasing more prisoners to home confinement in February.
The moves come as lawmakers approved an amendment requiring the department to regularly report on its efforts to release prisoners during the coronavirus pandemic.
The DOC said the state s prison population is at its lowest level in almost 35 years, so it will temporarily suspend operations at housing units that hold minimum-security and pre-release prisoners at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute in Shirley and South Middlesex Correctional Center.