As covid19 permeates through our communities like a toxic fog, and cries of loneliness and isolation increase among our communities, without minimising the suffering of those individuals, we should all spare a thought for those who by state dictate find themselves locked up in insanitary, overcrowded, conditions with inadequate medical facilities, over which they have no control what so ever. Prisoners across the world live in conditions that inhumane as normal, during this pandemic they seldom make the news but they are suffering from this covid19 disaster more than the public at large. In prison after prison the incarcerated have taken the only path left open to them, to riot, in an attempt to get some sort of protection from this virus that is ravishing prisons across the world.
This report is from America, that extremely rich imperialist power that goes around the world bombing and decimating countries, while killing and maiming the populations to give them democracy. The American prison system is no more or less that slavery, a large profit making corporate controlled inhuman institution. The corona virus has added immensely to the suffering of that slave population. However, no country is blameless in this incarceration, dignity denying cruel procedure, we are all culpably, human dignity and true democracy are impossible while prisons exist.
This report is from America, that extremely rich imperialist power that goes around the world bombing and decimating countries, while killing and maiming the populations to give them democracy. The American prison system is no more or less that slavery, a large profit making corporate controlled inhuman institution. The corona virus has added immensely to the suffering of that slave population. However, no country is blameless in this incarceration, dignity denying cruel procedure, we are all culpably, human dignity and true democracy are impossible while prisons exist.
By Ella Fassler, Truthout
U.S jails and prisons, already death traps, have been completely ravaged by COVID-19. Crowded quarters, a lack of PPE, inadequate medical care, an aging population, and unsanitary conditions have contributed to an infection rate 5.5 times higher than the already ballooned average in the U.S. As of this writing, over 252,000 people in jails and prisons have been infected and at least 1,450 incarcerated people and officers have died from the novel coronavirus. Evidence suggests these figures are underreported, however. (The entire state of Wisconsin, for example, isn’t releasing any information to the public.)
In response, incarcerated people have shown strong solidarity, coming together to demand baseline safety measures and advocating for their release, only to be met with brutal repression and punishment.
According to a new report released by the archival group Perilous: A Chronicle of Prisoner Unrest on November 13, incarcerated people in the U.S. collectively organized at least 106 COVID-19 related rebellions from March 17 to June 15. Perilous, a volunteer collective project that tracks information on all prison uprisings, riots, protests, strikes and other unrest within carceral facilities, described this activity as “clearly one of the most massive waves of prisoner resistance in the past decade.”
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