2-News
I
n the year since the COVID-19 pandemic
hit Michigan, 63% of Michigan’s prison
population has tested positive for the
virus and 139 people have died. In total,
more than 25,900 incarcerated people and
3,800 corrections staff have tested positive.
Incarcerated people are routinely exposed to
illness and unable to follow Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention guidance in cramped,
shared spaces. Sanitation and ventilation are
inadequate, and quarantine practices have
been lackadaisical. Additionally, visitation to
all Michigan prisons has been suspended since
March 13, 2020.
Advocates have been urging the Michigan
Department of Corrections to take meaningful
action to contain the virus since the pandemic
began. A white paper published last summer
by researchers from the American Friends
Service Committee and the University
of Michigan, of which I was a co-author,
detailed the dire conditions. Nearly 300 pages
of prisoner letters showed example after
example of horrifying conditions of facilities
compromising their safety day to day.
A year later, not much has changed. Cases
surged again in November, and Michigan now
ranks first in the nation in COVID-19 cases per
10,000 prisoners.
What was true then is still true today.
MDOC’s response is inadequate, but in fact,
no safe pandemic response is possible, given
the existing unsafe conditions in Michigan’s
prisons even before the pandemic. And due
to their continued inaction, new outbreaks
are still ongoing. Meanwhile, MDOC claims
to be taking additional safety measures and
denies responsibility for officer deaths. Letters
from the inside, however, suggest that MDOC
is more concerned with its public image than
with the well-being of those in its custody.
Action could and should have been taken
a year ago. As long as prisons are hotbeds of
transmission, the whole state of Michigan
remains at risk. The only response that truly
supports public health is reducing our prison
population and removing as many people as
possible from this hazardous environment.
Masks and Cleaning Supplies. In prison,
mask use is expected at all times, except while
eating, sleeping or showering. According to
the letters, many incarcerated people received
only two masks, not three as MDOC claimed.
Officers have written misconduct tickets
aggressively for mask non-compliance while
failing to wear the masks properly themselves.
Masks have become one more tool for officers
to wield power over prisoners and make
incarceration even more punitive.
Additionally, according to MDOC, “cleaning
products are available to clean commonly-used
areas and phones before and after use” and “all
prisoner areas and bathrooms have plentiful
access to soap.” But at Chippewa Correctional
Facility in Kincheloe, Mich., Jody Hill reported
that no additional soap was available. Regarding
bleach, “the officers just spray it a couple of times
on one rag and give it to the porter. Then he uses
the same rag to go around and wipe every single
thing.” Toilet paper too was carefully rationed.
Social
Distancing,
Meals
and
Ventilation. In a two-person cell or an eight-
person cube or a 160-bed pole barn (large
buildings housing low-security prisoners
in open dormitory-style bunks), the living
quarters are so close that social distancing is
impossible. While it is true that fewer people
are allowed into the chow hall at one time,
meals are rushed, served at odd hours and
nutritionally inadequate. At many facilities, it
appears that no one disinfects the dining area
between uses.
Many prisoners report receiving half
portions or even less. Vegetarians like juvenile
lifer (a person sentenced to life without parole
while still under 18) Yusef “Q” Qualls, have it
even worse: “They make these bean patties
using leftover veggies & sometimes leftover
beans too. … They make them then stick them
in the freezer until they need them, then then
they reheat them & serve them to us… They are
either soggy, or they are dust.” The resulting
widespread hunger has also contributed to
rising tensions.
Ventilation issues abound as well. In the
Upper Peninsula’s overcrowded pole barns,
summertime temperatures reached up to
100 degrees Fahrenheit. But MDOC directed
Kinross Correctional Facility in Kincheloe,
Mich., to shut off all its fans, supposedly
to prevent cross-contamination between
quarantined and non-quarantined air.
At Macomb Correctional Facility in Lenox
Township, Mich., quarantined units were not
allowed outdoors at all for over a month. The
lack of fresh air and exercise compounded
prisoners’ stress levels. At the Michigan
Reformatory in Ionia, Mich., a 30-person brawl
broke out in the yard over the use of a fan. Issues
like these have no easy fixes: They are built into
the very architecture of the prison.
Testing and Quarantine. MDOC has
performed over 800,000 tests for COVID-
19 and maintains an information repository
on Medium showing coronavirus numbers
by facility. But prison crowding and poor
quarantine practices mean that all that testing
has done little to curb the spread of the virus.
Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in
Adrian, Mich., managed to avoid an outbreak
until early April, when MDOC decided to
transfer prisoners who had tested positive at
several other facilities to a satellite unit there.
Within a week, several men fell ill. Within
a month, over 600 people at Gus Harrison had
tested positive. By now, out of 1,955 prisoners
tested at Gus Harrison, 1,466, or 75%, have
tested positive. After an officer died of COVID-
19, the facility was investigated and ultimately
fined for failing to adhere to safety measures.
And the numbers get even worse: at
Chippewa, Kinross, Carson City Correctional
Facility, Marquette Branch Prison, Michigan
Reformatory, Muskegon Correctional Facility
and Newberry Correctional Facility, over
80% of the incarcerated population has tested
positive.
The lack of safe quarantine spaces results
in inhumane conditions for those who
test positive. At Women’s Huron Valley in
Ypsilanti, Mich., prisoners who tested positive
were placed into segregation, and in other
places, they were quarantined in the field
house. While in separation, they received
no toilet paper, blankets or shower access.
At Macomb, prisoners were transferred
in and out of quarantine with little regard
for their symptom status, leading to cross-
contamination.
At 21 of Michigan’s prisons, over 100 staff
have tested positive. But that doesn’t mean
sick staff are staying home. Incarcerated
people across the state have reported that staff
were working while actively symptomatic.
Likewise, incarcerated people with jobs like
food preparation or sanitation have continued
to work for 17.5 to 32.5 cents per hour while
symptomatic, for fear of losing their job or
being sent to isolation.
Medical Care and Visitation. Long before
the pandemic, incarcerated people have
had to deal with substandard medical care.
Now, many are unwilling to admit feeling
sick, while others die after repeated medical
requests go ignored. People who are sick must
pay a $5 copay (equivalent to $300
in free-world earnings at minimum
wage) to see a nurse. They generally
receive only Tylenol, so many
don’t bother. MDOC is required to
provide only a minimum standard
of care and has a history of denying
patients costly treatments.
No one in Michigan’s prisons
has seen their family for a year.
Programming has been canceled,
including in-person educational
programming
and
treatment
programs required for parole.
For a few months, prisoners were
allowed two free, five-minute
phone calls per week.
Now,
incarcerated
people
receive two JPay stamps and some
fee reductions, but this hardly
compensates for the gaps left by the
protracted lack of visitation or programming.
This is one area where there has been some
improvement: Video visits have been rolling
out at some facilities since October, and on
March 12, MDOC announced that modified
in-person visitation will resume this Friday.
While this is a step in the right direction, it
does not negate the trauma of a year’s isolation
from their loved ones.
Summary. Prisons are liabilities to
public health at the best of times. Prior to the
pandemic, Michigan has suspended visitation
during outbreaks of influenza and scabies. In
2019, a group of women incarcerated at the
Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility
filed a federal lawsuit over a long-standing
black mold infestation.
The introduction of COVID-19 into this
already hazardous environment is a recipe
for disaster. Vaccination, while necessary to
control this particular outbreak, is not enough.
The same conditions that have made COVID-
19 so severe in correctional facilities will leave
prisons equally vulnerable to the next public
health crisis. None of this can be addressed
while MDOC continues to evade responsibility
for its bungled pandemic response.
So, what can be done?
First, immediately reduce the prison
population through executive clemency.
Overcrowded pole barns pose a particular
risk.
Reducing
eight-person
cubes
to
double occupancy would allow for a greater
possibility of physical distancing. The
governor should also issue an executive order
requiring MDOC to calculate the statutory
parole guidelines for anyone who has served
at least 15 years of a life or long-term sentence.
This would make more people eligible for
a parole review, especially those who have
already served many years. In January, the
Michigan State Appellate Defender Office
recommended several other ways to increase
paroles and commutations.
Second, cease processing new people
into such a high-risk environment. This
moment is a prime opportunity for judges and
prosecutors to seriously consider alternatives
to incarceration. Similarly, reducing arrests
for traffic tickets and other minor offenses
will reduce jail cycling, a prime factor in
community spread. Because unsafe conditions
in prison facilitate community spread through
corrections staff, they are a threat to public
health in the free world, too.
Even a mass vaccination program in
MDOC will be only a Band-Aid on the deeper
problem we must face: that our prisons are
inhumane, unsafe, cruel and a health risk to
us all. The only long-term solution is one that
reduces the size and scope of the carceral
system and builds a safer and more just
alternative.
10 — Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MEGAN WILSON | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
COVID in custody — one year into the failed pandemic response in Michigan’s prisons
Megan Wilson is a Ph.D. candidate in
the Department of Classical Studies and is a
researcher with the Carceral State Project. She
can be reached at wilsonms@umich.edu.
ISABELLE SCHINDLER | COLUMNIST
V
oter turnout in the November
2020 election was the highest
in American history with over
158 million people voting. However,
instead of celebrating this increased
electoral
participation,
Republican
state legislatures across the country are
enacting laws to make it harder to vote in
a blatant attempt to support Republican
candidates by disenfranchising voters.
Due
to
COVID-19,
many
states
expanded early and absentee voting, which
made voting much more accessible. In
typical years, finding time to vote had been
very difficult for many. Election Day falling
on a Tuesday hurts many voters, especially
hourly workers who may not be able to take
time off of work or find child care. Voters
without access to reliable transportation
also face barriers making their way to the
polls. The additional options of absentee
and early voting alleviated these issues and
made it much easier to vote.
Despite these clear benefits, Republican
state legislatures across the country are
attempting to enact new legislation to
restrict absentee and early voting to make
it harder in general for people to vote.
Georgia is one of the states at the
forefront of this effort to restrict enhanced
voting access. In 2020, Georgia surprised
the nation by going blue in the presidential
election for the first time since 1992.
Georgia voters provided another political
upset in early 2021 when they elected Sens.
Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., and Raphael Warnock,
D-Ga., in the Senate runoff. These two
critical wins flipped control of the United
States Senate to the Democrats.
In the wake of these defeats, Georgia’s
Republican-controlled state Senate has
passed legislation that specifically targets
Democratic voters by making it more
difficult to vote absentee. These bills,
among other things, restrict who can
use an absentee ballot, shorten the early
voting period and limit the number of
absentee ballot drop boxes.
Sixteen years ago, Republicans in
Georgia
passed
no-excuse
absentee
voting, which allowed anyone to vote
absentee without a reason. However, now
the Republican legislature is attempting
to reverse this policy and require voters
to have a specific excuse to receive an
absentee ballot. This change is clearly
in response to the increasing number of
Democrats in Georgia who prefer to vote
by mail, which the state GOP views as a
threat against their attempt to reclaim and
retain office.
The election bills in Georgia are
especially concerning as they also promote
disenfranchisement for voters of color.
African Americans are one of the largest
Democratic voting blocs in Georgia. One
of the most successful mobilization efforts
of African-American voters is the Souls
to the Polls program, where parishioners
would go to vote together after their
Sunday morning church services.
In the 2020 election, African Americans
made up a higher percentage of Sunday
voting than other days of early voting. The
proposed Georgia legislation would allow
counties to not hold early voting on Sundays,
severely damaging the Souls to the Polls
program. Stacy Abrams, Georgia voting
rights activist, has emphasized the racial
aspects of the Georgia bill, calling it and
similar bills, “Jim Crow in a suit and tie.”
Other states have also taken steps
to restrict voting access. In Iowa, the
Republican governor signed legislation
that shortens the early voting period,
requires absentee ballots to be received
rather than just postmarked by Election
Day and makes the polls close an hour
earlier at 8 p.m. Another very concerning
aspect of the Iowa legislation is that
voters who skip a general election and
don’t register again will be purged from
voter lists. This provision will lead to
the disenfranchisement of many voters
who likely will not know that they were
unregistered if they miss an election.
Arizona, another state that flipped for
President Joe Biden, has also advanced
new voting restrictions. They have
attempted to pass legislation that would
reduce the number of absentee voters
and require additional identification for
absentee voting. A state representative in
Arizona recently went viral for comments
saying that Republicans “don’t mind
putting security measures in that won’t let
everybody vote — but everybody shouldn’t
be voting.”
This statement demonstrates the clear
motivations of Republicans in these states
and potentially others. They are not actually
concerned about the nonexistent voter
fraud. Instead, they saw how increased
voter participation led to Democratic wins.
However, instead of trying to motivate their
own voters, Republican state legislatures
are targeting voting rights and attempting
to make it harder to vote.
In order to address this issue, the U.S.
Congress must pass the John Lewis Voting
Rights Advancement Act. This bill, named
after the late civil rights icon U.S Rep.
John Lewis, D-Ga., would strengthen the
Voting Rights Act and help combat voter
suppression. This bill is our best option to
stand up to disenfranchisement.
The right to vote is one of the most
sacred rights we have. For anyone in our
government to restrict those rights for
political gain is unconscionable and must
be opposed at every level.
Continued voter suppression
Isabelle Schindler can be reached at
ischind@umich.edu.
EMILY LAWSIN | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
T
he Atlanta murders have drawn long
overdue attention to the problems
Asian women face with racist and
heteropatriarchal violence. Because this broader
subject has been a focus of my intersectional
scholarship over the past three decades, I will
have more to say about these matters. The
following article, written before the Atlanta
murders, addresses the problem of gaslighting
that has become a central concern of Asian
American women as the police, politicians and
media have questioned whether the murders
were racially motivated.
Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic governor
of New York, is facing calls to resign and an
impeachment inquiry after multiple women
have come forward with complaints of sexual
harassment and inappropriate behavior.
Since 2016, we have watched Donald Trump
rise to the presidency and command loyalty from
leading Republican Party figures despite a long
record of misogynistic and racist statements on
top of numerous allegations of sexual assault and
harassment. Getting Trump out of the White
House was thus a necessary and important step.
For all who care about social justice, however, we
know that the struggle is far from over. We can’t
let a focus on Trump’s horrific conduct preclude
us from seeing the systemic problems we must
address. Indeed, institutions with a liberal
reputation often use rhetorical commitments to
diversity, equity and inclusion as a smokescreen
for deep, structural problems with how they
handle sexual misconduct, including retaliation
against complainants and survivors.
Earlier this academic year, I accepted a request
from the United Asian American Organizations
to serve as a faculty ally and advocate for student
survivors of sexual assault and harassment.
In carrying out this work, I do so as part of my
general public advocacy against discrimination
and harassment and without singling out any
person or entity as the sole example.
Our advocacy for survivors must address
the central problem of retaliation. For instance,
the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission has reported that “75% of employees
who spoke out against workplace mistreatment
faced some form of retaliation.” We need to
recognize that lawyers, administrators and
behind-the-scenes officials who claim to care
about survivors are frequently acting to uphold
the status quo that protects offenders and
perpetuates rape culture.
Individuals and institutions facing charges of
sexual assault and harassment often deliberately
hire women defense attorneys to give the
appearance of sympathy with survivors. Indeed,
there is a perverse form of marketing and
branding within corporate law firms to present
white women and people of color as gender
and race experts to help wealthy and powerful
clients fight off sexual misconduct or civil rights
complaints.
One of the most notorious examples in
recent history was Lisa Bloom’s work on behalf
of Harvey Weinstein. The daughter of the
prominent feminist attorney Gloria Allred, Bloom
built her own national reputation as a media
figure and attorney advocating for survivors of
sexual harassment and abuse. Bloom offered all
of that expertise, including intimate knowledge
of how to prey on the vulnerabilities of survivors,
in the service of helping Weinstein destroy his
accusers at the rate of $895 an hour.
Bloom’s
retaliation
strategy
memo
to
Weinstein, uncovered by New York Times
reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey,
provides what a Quartz article called “a roadmap
for how accused predators stay in power.” It
should be studied by anyone seeking a better
understanding of any institution that has covered
up rampant problems with sexual assault.
Bloom began by telling Weinstein, “I feel
equipped to help you against the Roses of the
world, because I have represented so many of
them.”
Although “(t)hey start out as impressive,
bold women,” Bloom knew how to expose their
“weaknesses.” The step-by-step process begins
with “friendly contact” with the survivor to
discern what she wants, while simultaneously
carrying out a “(c)ounterops online campaign”
to seed “well placed articles” that “push back and
call her out as a pathological liar.”
Bloom also proposed using hardball legal
tactics to intimidate survivors, while offering
to partner with Weinstein on a “pre-emptive
interview” that would make him appear “the
hero” of his story by demonstrating his professed
empathy. The “headline-grabbing” hero stories
would go even further with the next step: starting
a charitable organization dedicated to gender
equity or pledging to increase the representation
of women in film.
Although Bloom has since apologized, Rose
McGowan, one of the Weinstein survivors,
responded, “The evil that was perpetrated on me
and others was mind bending and illegal. Lisa
Bloom should be disbarred.” Sadly, disbarring
Bloom would only lead to someone just like her
filling that void.
Famed liberal attorney David Boies, who
represented Al Gore in Bush v. Gore and
successfully brought the issue of marriage
equality to the Supreme Court, had a longer
business and legal relationship with Weinstein
that has led him to be viewed as a key “enabler.”
Boies arranged for ex-military intelligence
operatives to run “an undercover surveillance
operation targeting journalists and alleged
Weinstein victims.”
These are the types of memos the public
rarely sees because they are generally shielded
by attorney-client privilege. But we’ve witnessed
more than enough examples of institutional
misconduct to be skeptical of all internal
investigations and PR statements of reform.
Larry Nassar’s survivors were gaslit by a
sham Title IX investigation that was followed
by the investigator being promoted to work in
the Michigan State University Office of General
Counsel. Thus, the ostensibly neutral Title IX
investigator was put in a position where her inside
knowledge of survivors and their complaints
could be deployed to aid MSU’s defense against
expected lawsuits. The Nassar case should raise
alarms about the prospect of purportedly neutral
“institutional equity” offices directly or indirectly
collaborating with the attorneys representing the
broader institution.
At the University of Oregon, at least two
students who went to the campus counseling
center for assistance dealing with reported
rapes later discovered that university defense
attorneys accessed their patient records. Citing
a loophole in the Family Educational Rights and
Privacy Act or Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act privacy laws, the university
lawyers compelled the counseling center to turn
over private clinical records — all without the
knowledge or consent of the survivors.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Suzanne
Bonamici, D-Ore., stated, “The last thing sexual
assault victims should have to think about is
whether their own words could be used against
them when they seek help.” These incidents raised
red flag warnings for survivors of sexual assault,
racism and other protected class violations to
be wary of what they tell any employee of an
institution in which they have been harmed.
As a faculty member who has focused on
race and gender equity throughout my 21-year
career at the University of Michigan, I am
committed to promoting truly independent
methods of investigation that get to the root
cause of problems without the conflicts of
interest we have seen in the examples above and
too many other cases nationwide. For example,
GRACE provides third-party investigations into
patterns of abuse within churches, employing
professionally trained staff who address both
individual and institutional accountability. At
my alma mater, the University of California,
Los Angeles, multiple civil rights complaints
led to the formation of a systemic investigation
led by a retired federal judge followed by an
implementation
agreement
for
structural
reform with then-Attorney General Kamala
Harris.
While this is just a start, it is the type of work
that must take precedence over performative
acts and token measures in order to hold those
wielding power accountable. It is the least we owe
survivors and our ancestors who never received
justice.
Gaslighting and retaliating against survivors are
systemic, bipartisan problems
Emily P. Lawsin is a Lecturer IV in the
Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, the
Department of American Culture, and the Asian/
Pacific Islander American Studies Program. She
can be reached at elawsin@umich.edu.
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