Scores of COVID-19 deaths in Oregon’s prisons underscore the failures of America’s carceral system
E xpendable. The word refers to something that is normally used up or consumed in service, or something that is more easily replaced than rescued, salvaged or protected. In other words, something suited for abandonment.
But expendable can also indicate a choice. In the March 10 edition of the paper, we chronicle the deaths of all the prisoners who, as of press time, had died of COVID-19 while serving time in an Oregon state prison . Of these 42 individuals, some were young, and some were middle-aged. Some had a life waiting for them after their sentence. And according to the families Street Roots spoke with, their deaths were avoidable: They didn’t have to die.
Some might accept that in the face of a massive pandemic unprecedented in our lifetimes, prisons were predestined for failure. Confined quarters and concentrated populations — that include many people with pre-existing health conditions — are prime fuel for the spread of an infectious disease. But beyond the physicality of our prison system were actions and a culture that failed prisoners who had little recourse to protect themselves against a deadly pandemic.
Even as we knew how to curb the spread of the disease, reports emerging from inside prisons told of staff refusing to wear masks, a lack of social distancing and inadequate sanitation. Quarantine for those reporting illness often meant solitary confinement — a place of punishment. This discouraged people from acknowledging any symptoms that might indicate they had contracted COVID-19.
The conditions prompted legal action against the Oregon Department of Corrections, with claims from plaintiffs that fellow prisoners were working while displaying signs of being sick and in some cases after testing positive for COVID-19.
According to one lawsuit , filed in February, a man who had contracted COVID-19 said he didn’t immediately report his symptoms because he was told he would be fired from his job, and if fired, he would lose his preferential housing status. Another prisoner, who tested positive for COVID-19 in October, had a mental illness that was exacerbated by the disease. He was allegedly confined to his cell for all but 30 minutes a day, forced to wear the same soiled clothes for seven days and given half-portion meals. He lost 20 pounds, according to the lawsuit.
These are only a few of more than 90 similar testimonies included in the same lawsuit seeking $9.9 million in damages for people incarcerated during the pandemic. Given the opaque nature of our prison operations, we probably would never know of these stories without such legal action.
Read our special report on the pandemic’s toll within prisons.
The comprehensive report in Street Roots' March 10 edition follows a string of work by Street Roots’ staff and correspondents on the damages our criminal justice system causes to both people caught in its web and to society at large. Beyond the needless deaths and persisting illnesses due to the pandemic — and other health conditions caused and aggravated by incarceration — prisons generate trauma through violence experienced both directly and indirectly. This trauma can last long after release, and the violence exposure during incarceration can put a prisoner at higher risk for additional criminal behavior after they leave prison.
STREET ROOTS NEWS: The trauma of incarceration: It’s ‘gladiator school’ inside
That’s not what we’re told prisons are supposed to do, and furthermore, this isn’t a trade-off we should be forced to make.
Society has been sold a bill of goods that incarceration is a matter of public safety, a necessary system of retribution and rehabilitation. But that’s fool’s gold given the larger price we pay: The poverty perpetuated by the employment, housing and benefits discrimination that await existing prisoners; the cost of untreated substance abuse and mental illness before, during and after incarceration; and the impact of releasing seriously traumatized people back to society.
Meanwhile, the most recent comprehensive study on U.S. recidivism from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BSJ) found 83% of state prisoners were rearrested within nine years of their release. That’s a success rate, if you want to call it that, of just 17%.
When a so-called solution causes more harm than good, it’s time to reevaluate that solution, especially one so steeped in racism directed against Black and brown Americans.
And yet we’ve known all this for some time, and our response is to chip away at the carceral state, bit by bit, around the outer edges. We reduce sentencing a little here and there, add a few more reentry programs for people getting out; in Oregon, our corrections department starts calling prisoners “adults in custody” instead of “inmates.” But these little consolations offer little real progress when the deeply flawed system in which they exist is still thoroughly intact.
As with other aspects of our society, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought into clearer focus the structural flaws within our archaic institutions. And today, public awareness about the social consequences and baked-in racism of our prison industrial complex has never been greater.
And, more Americans are recognizing the value of rehabilitating prisoners, considering that most of them — at least 95% of state prisoners according to BSJ statisticians — will return to our communities. When they do, their experiences in prison could ultimately determine whether they return to victimizing their fellow citizens or thrive, living healthy and successful lives.
These same Americans look at our prison system with the misguided belief that it isn’t working — misguided because while popular sentiment may have turned toward rehabilitation, our prisons were never about that. They were built as a continuation of slave labor and to punish, an eye for an eye. The system continues to effectively dehumanize and torment prisoners, just as intended.
Given our location along the timeline of human progress, we’re having grossly outdated conversations. We continue to amend our carceral state, when we should be planning for what replaces it.
We must take our awareness and these lessons learned forward to redesign what criminal justice should be in the future — a system that prioritizes public safety and actually works to help people, to heal trauma and protect lives.
With that comes revamping our sentencing practices and rejecting incarceration as the default place to park people while society dusts off its hands and walks away.
What would a facility built for rehabilitation look and feel like? Should a sentence’s length be determined by the crime committed or on the amount of time an individual’s rehabilitation will take to complete?
Nothing is accomplished when people are abandoned behind prison walls. The casualties in our prisons from COVID-19 are not an aberration when the system is designed to fail, and no one — no one — is expendable.
Street Roots editorials represent the opinion of the Street Roots organization and editorial board. Street Roots is an award-winning weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots . Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today .
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