Transcripts For ALJAZ The Stream 20240712

To come out on top he is currently leading in the Electoral College count. Are her turn you know we believe were on track to win this election. Because they are pressured early vote in a mail in vote thats going to take a war. Were going to have to be patient until were the hard work of talent votes is finished and then over to every vote is counted every ballot is counted. But were fair on her. Bidens biggest victory so far has been arizona its the only state to flip off to chomp on it back and 2016 results are still being counted in wisconsin pennsylvania and georgia all very important states. And in other news ethiopia has begun military operations in the north and made an escalation in tensions the local government in the tikrit region has been accused of attacking federal troops but local authorities have dismissed that accusing the Prime Minister approaching conflict police and ivory coast are surrounding the houses of several opposition leaders after the incumbent was declared the winner of the president ial election the opposition had rejected out a summer taras reelection and has vowed to set up a Transitional Government people in england are preparing for a 2nd National Coronavirus lockdown restaurants pubs gyms and nonessential businesses will close for 4 weeks in a bid to contain a 2nd wave of infections british Prime Minister baraks johnson has vowed to intensify testing when these new measures expire on december 2nd. Well those are the headlines kevin now will have more news for you here on out is there after the strain. To go to 0. Realistically how can you do this to this corruption in this country we listen if this breaks up into conflict buggiest on an india this has implications for the rest of the world we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that back to 00. 3 ok and join the stream today prison pandemic people are trapped inside u. S. Prisons infected with coronavirus but should they be we want to hear your thoughts on this one tweet us at a. J. Stream or leave a comment in our live chat to join the conversation. Prisons are supposed to be some of the most secure places on the planet but despite the high Security Prisons across the u. S. Havent been able to keep the coronavirus set back one notorious covert 1000 hot spot is californias san quentin prison the outbreak there is a subject of a new film by al jazeera as for its have a look one of americas worst coronaVirus Outbreaks of the prison happened in california after infected inmates were transferred from one facility to another no ventilation windows or welded to everyone is breathing the same air all of the time every day for a week straight then reason lamb is called man down man down man down man down in the oh my arms asks who is responsible. For making prison quintin operate on and just you know joining us from california to discuss the issues of covert infection in u. S. Prisons at one card is a cofounder and Co Executive Director with the restored Justice James king hes a state campaigner with the Ella Baker Center for human rights and hes a managing attorney with the San Francisco Public Defenders Office or for the way its really good to see you james as you watch that 4 lines documentary as you took part in that documentary it was just a short period of time between when you were incarcerated and when you were released when the outbreak happened. When you put all of that together. We think. And maybe for me it. Just looks like about the character. Quite i had made it out maybe 90 days prior to the largest clustered outbreak in the in the country and it was in many ways just good fortune to smile and down on me it could have been anyone it should have been several people so just like knowing that there was nothing this think about me to they created that timeline just the way things lined up that there happened to d prevent me from going through it while thousands of others did have it has been. Really hard to reconcile frankly theres a moment in the documentary. A nice his walking at san quentin and. Anonymously explains what happened i just want to play back because it all stressed frightening harry at how listen everybody. The was there was a. Little was there we. Believe that the earth did you shoot. It was. Going to be. Our we are urging our churches. To kookery. You. And i was about 7 months ago with the string that had to take a break because a cousin until we came back the faces show the dead was about the risk of covert outbreaks and present and he was talking about covert outbreaks in prison this was xpect to do you hold people about not that many advocates what went wrong. I mean one thing that went wrong is that they didnt listen to the advocates and the experts then texas disease experts the doctors the people who are formally incarcerated lawyers they the people who are in charge who makes these decisions did not listen to the experts and that is exactly what we are what went wrong and in the midst of all of this we had a huge botch transfer of incarcerated people from one of the deadliest prisons in Southern California to san quentin that created this outbreak this is one of the largest tragedies in in the prison system that im aware of been recent history and that is actually a problem that were seeing nationally is people in charge in these positions of leadership are not listening to the experts was a facepalm moment what happened sequential present was up until after the cases had. 0 cases than what happened time so pick up the stuff and i know youve got friends who are still in san quentin absolutely and one of the things that i think about often is we dont know that there would be ok says within san quentin prior to that out right what we do know is there was very little testing occurring and the plan when when people when they finally started testing because so many people were going man down and it was requiring them to test within 2 weeks over a 1000 people what became infected so you can imagine and thats out of a population at the clam of about 4000 people so one in 4 d people within 2 people in this very small clustered gated facility prison became. Infected very quickly and. There was no room to put them so everyone if you were in a cell the cells are 4 feet wide by an hour of foot wide and your cell mate became infected then that cell mate stayed right there and you just waited for the inevitable you would have it shortly and that was the understanding the expectation and there was nothing to do about it because the prison was so overwhelmed so quickly dont you know im just looking for something here firm the. Laptop the office of the Inspector General independent prison oversight just going to school down here on my laptop says have a California Department of corrections and rehabilitation distribute it and mandate mandated the use of personal protective equipment and cloth face cutters it looks like they knew what they had to do how did it go so horribly wrong while the. Department of corrections which is the agency that oversees san quentin and all of the prisons in california makes a lot of policies but they are less. Adept at insuring it here and to policies by their own staff and so what the inspector what the office of the Inspector General found and thats sort of a Watchdog Agency that has the power to inspect the prisons unfortunately not the power to mandate any changes but what they found is that the department which is massive 63000. 00 employees. Were talking about a department that spent half a 1000000000 dollars last year on overtime alone so it is a Massive Organization and what the found is that they werent in forcing masking requirements so when of course when we put folks in prison a lot of folks as we have done we remove from them the ability to take care of their own basic needs so when we do that we not only. Are punishing people which we certainly are are but we are the state is taking on a huge obligation to care for the daily physical needs of these individuals their food of course and their health care and to protect them when Something Like this pandemic happened so if staff arent doing what we all know in least those of us who are willing to listen to the experts if theyre not Wearing Masks all the time when they are at work. There is no doubt that that is going to contribute to the spread in the prisons. Because theres no such thing as social distancing in prison in california even if you are placed in a cell by yourself at least at san quentin and you can see here what their structures are. Theres in most of the buildings in san quentin. There are 5 levels of open cells each cell has bars and nash on it but no solid door so its not just the person in your cell who you cannot social distance from its anybody walking by and its actually folks on the tears above you too because of the shared air and the terrible ventilation that doesnt really allow the air to get transferred in and out of the buildings and as a voice and at times. Yeah i just want to add one thing today that daniel makes several excellent points but one thing that the vast majority of those 63000 employees that daniel just mentioned go in and out of the prisons every day in 8 hour shifts so the idea that these are somehow prison outbreaks and that this can be isolated suppressed prison incident is a large part of what weve been advocating against each one of these outbreaks and theres when you just look at incarcerated people there are outbreaks at 20 different prisms right now when you look at staff theres an outbreak in every prison in the state right now in each one of those Staff Members and outbreaks those people get off work they take their uniforms off they drift into the community and there are no parameters set in place to reduce the kind of you get cities that are acting is a can act of super spreaders in the larger communities so i want to put this to you james and i add them because as theres an empathy gap on right now so. North chilltown says 9 schools may if they are imprisoned they stay in prison until that time is up of this story another one along the same lines short as since when is a crime wealth death set us to overturn it conversations going on that they all say mentioned the stock that was like the present at the new pickup that because yeah i think i want it and its a gap though so i stopped as well to have to i want to i want to add to that i mean i think that if people are only looking and we need to protect the staff and not incarcerated people i really feel like that this is a very individual question that we need to ask ourselves as human beings as the person that we want to become what is it about us as individuals that want to harm others regardless of what theyve done and the other thing is that our understanding of safety and well who commits crimes why crimes are committed how to restore people is totally lost on society what we believe is ok you did the crime you do the time no one ever understands what doing time truly means and if that is whats providing safety not just for people who are in society away from people who are incarcerated or people are coming back to society but its true safety is really is people who are coming back into Society Making sure that they are safe make sure that im safe that james is safe and still safety isnt one sided road its code that is showing that if i have coded and im Walking Around in the streets and in your Grocery Stores and in different areas and youre malls are you safe no youre not safe so safety is not just keeping james away from a nun or keeping danielle away from james thats not what safety is safety is restoring the humanity in people and last thing i would say that by the time i was 17 years old i was a parent list Homeless High School dropout. At the age of 18 under those conditions and with layers and layers of trauma and abuse i committed a crime im not excusing my crime but what i am saying is that when i got to prison there was nothing in prison that told me to say sorry no one in prison told me to be accountable no one in prison asked me to be to to apologize to the victims to making amends no one asked me that and so when we look at safety people completely misunderstand what safety is because its been sold to us as a product by policing and prisons thats the problem there is a voice that is missing from this conversation and its a tricky voice to get and thats the California Department of corrections and rehabilitation look here on my laptop because i do have at least some current figures here and if you look at this chart it tells us how many people in the state of california who are incarcerated colony half cunto had kovi its a cut in custody. Over 700 active cases of just over 400 people have been released while they had a co they had a result thats an interesting word isnt it a result that means that they probably are recovered from kovi im not sure that thats a question of being resolved and this fake a here 18 deaths so how many people have actually had coated in the California State Prison system 6000 people we couldnt get their voice in this conversation thought lines also try and here is my colleague dina to corey on the efforts that she also made to see if they were talk to out of their. In an emailed statement a c. D. C. Or representative said they implemented unprecedented measures to address the coven 1000 outbreak at san quentin. After transfers from c i am tested positive they set up a 220. 00 bed alternative care site provided all staff and the incarcerated population live and 95. 00 respirators and send hundreds of additional staff to san quentin. Dont you this is a tweet here that you shat in it says 10 days ago and this was in july i wrote 60 People Living in san quentin offering advocacy todays return mail let me just screwed up and just see look at this one. From you what help did they need to head. So they needed to know that people were paying attention that people cared that people were working to try to better the situation for them i think. Its interesting that c. D. C. Are continues to say that they took extraordinary measures as if they did all they could not withstanding the fact that the court of appeal has said that the in action in san quentin by those same officials has been quote morally indefensible we have a situation where the measures c. D. C. Are took may be unprecedented because were in the midst of a Global Pandemic the likes of which hasnt been seen in in the lifetime of anybody living today but is been grossly inadequate and thats why we are in the situation we are in where there was an explosion of co that at san quentin this stammer and in july people began dying at san quentin those 29 people 28 incarcerated people and one staff member who have died should be alive today that blood is on the hands of the c. D. C. Are officials and the reason that they dont speak really publicly i think is that they are used to operating in complete secret with complete impunity and there is no accountability 29 people died at san quentin and where is the accountability for those deaths. Our prison system is built on this notion that people need to be held accountable for the decisions that they made in june a team of independent experts told c. D. C. Our officials that they needed to cut the population of san quentin in half. Or people were going to begin dying and they refused to listen to that advice and 29 people are dead where is the accountability suggest lets talk lets talk lessons and maybe where we are right now i want to have a listen to adam mayes. And he introduces himself he tells the story i just i leave him to go at my name as adamu chan and i was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison during the height of the crown a Virus Outbreak that happened there and at no time during those months did i feel like their health and safety being incarcerated population. Sank when i was a priority for the administration or for c. D. C. Or officials and what i witnessed was that the vast overcrowding in san quentin and all the prisons across california. Was a huge factor in kind of exacerbating the spread the virus through our population and so any solution has to start with mass releases. Mass rally im going to put this question to you from james this is from moss how willing. To release present us law says james. You know i would start by saying that California Department department of corrections is unwilling to release anyone in response to this pandemic they have fought this tooth and nail every step of the way even though every public expert every medical expert legislators the Judicial Branch Community Members and advocates have all weighed in to not only say that that releases are the safest thing to do in response to this pandemic but also that we are standing by to support those releases so they have all of the information they know that its not only politically viable but that there is support for it like Material Resources and yet they still are resistant to to conduct any type of times why. I think that the bottom line is that that this is a. Our lives in our addiction upon incarceration as a means for social control has been part of our society for for decades upon decades we have 35 prisons within our state that hold close to 100000 people right now you dont get there without. Being devoted to that ever policy and has Priority Issues that we are going to incarcerate are our ways out of marginalization disenfranchisement a lack of resources and resource sharing in our communities so there is a very specific model that california believes in it which is that incarceration keeps us safe well says advocates are saying that is false that is categorically untrue what keeps us they are having basic affordable housing. Just having an income a reasonable living wage having access to reasonable medical and Mental Health treatment when needed those are the things that actually keep communities safe and build communities and our government at this point has a different philosophy james im just looking as if somebody asked. Me ad then ill come right back to some of the advocacy that you were to when he says no transfers town halls daddys coming up at 9 am from new york and i say send stop sign crime to an outbreak and i want to know if this may well be an opportune as it happens so many protests so much advocacy and im just putting this last common app and then you jump off the back of it Governor Newsom and c. D. C. Are have an opportunity and that is to stop the further spreading of kogan 1900 by stopping our prison transfers and also stop dropping people off in Ice Detention Centers sadly we cant go backwards we cant correct terrible decisions already made but what we can do is we can stop making terrible decisions we can understand that there are many people many Vulnerable People within a vulnerable population with comorbidities who have loved ones ready for their safe release who how organizations planning for safe release and this is a place where we can all lean in and understand that we have an opportunity to save lives 8 months into this Global Pandemic so many Lessons Learned a lifes last act now and now what. Thats what i was going to bring our family thank you for saying that again Lessons Learned and lessons have not been learned and there is a clear example with the chart you gave earlier right now and corcoran which is a chance for california i spent 5 years there theres 392 cases active cases recorded right now and you like you said 8 months into a pandemic after 80 deaths 16 over 16000 recorded or reported cases in California State Prisons alone right there what youre showing now what lessons have we learned if you look at the left side right here 150 active cases in the in the last 14 days 392 cases in the last 14 days and these are 2 different facilities and we are 8 months in a pandemic that means 8 months without visits so family programs volunteers have not been coming in so who has been going in and taking cold out of these facilities for the past 8 months and who are talking about theyre not Wearing Masks properly you can still show this is are physically distance in prison and weve been saying that since march and why you know for us to repeat that in november on election day i bet it just is just mind blowing to me and so when we talk about accountability and society can constantly blame people for coming in crime and you do the time you do that you do the crime you do the time stay in prison well the truth is it for asking people to be accountable for the crimes that theyve committed by and for breaking the law well we as a society and as a government have a legal responsibility to provide Adequate Health care for people that we incarcerate that is a law so its very hypocritical to tell people or or bad side to to demand accountability from people and not hold ourselves accountable to a law that we have to be governed by so theres many discrepancies here that continue to contradict themselves when people like myself james and danielle talk about kogut and when the government and the governors talk. So what has stuck 392. 00 cases right now actively as were talking but theres a but we cant you know highlight the super spreader events on the in that rose garden at the white house lawn we talk about that but we dont talk about the 392 cases that are happening right now that half staff like james mentioned coming in you know that prison every 8 hours into our communities i dont know about that at 9 and james and danielle thank you so much for being part of todays program at night and there are so many more questions about what happens if you release people right now during a Global Pandemic which is why im really glad that youre going to be on Instagram Live guests a little bit later on about 30 minutes from now on. At a. J. Stream that is well youll find him and if you dont have time to do that very soon youll find it any time so how can my laptop because we have been talking about the new 4 documentary pandemic imprison the san quentin outbreak you can find it online and you can also find dates. On aljazeera t. V. As well thanks so much for watching im femi oke a next time. November on aljazeera. Following huge protests and the introduction of the beijing back National Security will carry lamb sets out have a vision for hong kong. All hail the lockdown explores the complexities of our Global Response to the coronavirus pandemic. In a series of special reports we can summon the Global Gaming boom as other entertainment businesses struggle to survive up front returns with Emmy Award Winning journalist Richelle Carey shell cut through the headlines and be rigorous debate and former french president Nicolas Sarkozy will face trial on corruption charges well bring you the latest november on aljazeera. And oust iranian 5 go yes i have to would that likely is not you know learn about august night Something Else happened on august night. Understood my 18 year old Michael Brown was gunned down 2. 13 songs i heard some really mean i saw my son in 15 and i saw our body used that i mentor man enough felt like you know at this my time to stand up. A story of love family and fredo calling from my living years old you were at school we heard the sound of large explosions. And the hardships faced in captivity they came for me i mean that night they told me to leave my son i said how can i contact him i saw so much pain in the eyes of the other female prisoners. In the our pricing. On aljazeera. Aljazeera. This is aljazeera. Given al this is the news all live from doha coming up in the next 60 minutes we were getting ready to win this election frankly we did win this. On and knife edge donald trump falsely claims victory in the u. S. President ial election despite key results yet to be announced. His rival joe biden says he Still Believes hell win and is currently 32. 00 veterans