On Monday, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that Corcraft, the state-run company that pays New York inmates an average of 65 cents an hour, is producing potent hand sanitizer that will be distributed to communities across the state to combat the spread of COVID-19.
While the governor tweeted that the hand sanitizer will be given to “government agencies, schools, the MTA, prisons,” people who are incarcerated in New York State prisons are prohibited from possessing hand sanitizer, because it contains alcohol, which is considered contraband.
And it’s unclear if there is a formal plan for preventing novel coronavirus from spreading through the state’s 52 correctional facilities, which hold more than 44,000 people.
Last Friday, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), which runs the state prisons, put out a press release noting that visitors would now be screened and that the agency was “actively working to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in New York State.”
DOCCS has not answered our questions about whether inmates would be allowed to use hand sanitizer, or whether the agency is introducing any other measures to stop the spread of the virus. It's not clear if the prison system has COVID-19 testing capabilities. A spokesperson for Governor Cuomo’s office referred us to the DOCCS press release.
(For city jails that hold roughly 7,000 people, the NYC Correction Department's novel coronavirus plan was leaked to THE CITY earlier this week. Hand sanitizer is still banned in City jails because "there are no places where people in custody are housed where they do not have access to sinks, soap and water," a DOC spokesperson said.)
“The first thing they should do, is they need to find a way to make this [hand sanitizer] available to incarcerated people and to provide cleaning supplies widely so that people can clean their living spaces,” said Jennifer Scaife, the executive director for the Correctional Association of New York, an independent group that conducts surveys of incarcerated people, and has the power under state law to visit and monitor prison conditions.
The virus rapidly spread throughout crowded Chinese prisons, and Scaife said that New York’s facilities are also ideal for the transmission of infectious diseases.
“Nearly 47 percent of people said that their cells were not habitable per DOCCS regulations,” Scaife said, referring to the most recent CANY survey from late 2019. “They don't have working sinks or working toilets, they have vermin in their cells, crumbling infrastructure.”
Jose Saldana, the director of the Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP) campaign, who spent 38 years in New York State prisons, said the notion that people have easy access to soap and water is “not true.”
“Everywhere you go, you're locked up in a bullpen, you have to have permission to go to the bathroom, one at a time,” Saldana said. “Then you're in a big yard, you don't have access. People are coughing on you, and whenever you touch something you know lots of people have touched it too.”
Saldana added, “We're talking about something as simple as hand sanitizer.”
While New Yorkers may have the idea that prisons are hermetically sealed places, Scaife said “they are actually quite porous.”
“All the staff that go in and out during shift change, and the visitors, but there are also lots and lots of transferring that DOCCS does of people in custody from one prison to another,” she said.
“The movement among facilities that DOCCS operates is something else to pay attention to. These are people on buses and vans and people are in close quarters for hours at a time, they might be brought overnight to a [DOCCS facility] before continuing on their journey.”
Elderly people and those with existing health problems are believed to be the most vulnerable to COVID-19. Thirty percent of the prison population are older than 45, and 12.5 percent are 55 years and older. That roughly tracks with the overall state population, but incarcerated people tend to be much less healthy than those who are not. While the average life expectancy in New York State is 80, that number decreases by two years for every year someone is incarcerated, according to the New York State Health Foundation.
Access to medical care within New York’s prisons is also scant, Scaife said. “Nearly 74 percent of people who responded to our surveys said they were unable to see a doctor or health provider when they needed to over the past year.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo holds up NYS Clean hand sanitizer, produced by incarcerated New Yorkers, at a press conference on Monday.
The pandemic has given new urgency to calls for Governor Cuomo to use his clemency powers to commute sentences and release aging and infirm members of the prison population.
On Wednesday, RAPP and other criminal justice advocates, as well as elected officials like Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, asked Governor Cuomo to grant these people clemency, and support pending legislation that would create more frequent parole opportunities for older inmates.
In his nine years as governor, Cuomo has granted 21 commutations.
“Once the virus spreads to our prisons, older incarcerated people and those with preexisting health problems will be in the virus’s crosshairs and the prisons will not have the capacity to care for them,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “Now would be a good time for Governor Cuomo to consider the clemency petitions of these vulnerable incarcerated people.”
Saldana said that the state’s reluctance to provide incarcerated people with hand sanitizer did not surprise him.
“DOCCS has a history of ignoring health crises in the prison system,” he said. “I know from my experience, even during the HIV/AIDS epidemic that hit the NY state prison system with devastating results. People had to go to court just for treatment.”
Saldana stressed that the issue was personal for him.
“I see some of my elderly brothers that I left behind are gonna fall victim to this virus, and the only hope they have is if Governor Cuomo starts granting them clemency.”
