Today, Explained - Lockdown while locked up

Episode Date: April 1, 2020

Arthur Longworth calls Sean from Washington State Reformatory to explain what it's like to serve a life sentence at a prison where the coronavirus is spreading. (Transcript here.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's Wednesday, April 1st, 2020, but you'd be a fool to play a prank on someone at a time like this. I'm Sean Ramosforum, and this is your coronavirus update from Today Explained. It's Census Day. The US Census Bureau had to suspend field operations for the time being, but it's still counting on you to help get this thing done by the end of the year. You can head to my2020census.gov to take it. I did mine this morning. There is no citizenship question on the census, if you're wondering.

And if you're also wondering if this pandemic is essentially our generation's world war, the answer is evidently yes. The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres today said COVID-19 is the greatest test that we have faced together since the formation of the United Nations. The UN is estimating that something like 25 million people will lose their jobs worldwide, bringing a recession that, quote, probably has no parallel in the recent past. The number of confirmed cases around the world is now approaching a million, with close to 50,000 deaths. The death toll in the United States is now over 4,000, more than we lost on 9-11, and also that's more than officially died in China because of COVID-19. But U.S. intelligence is now confirming a long-held suspicion

that China has been underreporting the toll of COVID-19. According to Bloomberg News, not Michael, the intelligence community turned in a classified report to the White House that says China concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak. And people like Dr. Deborah Birx from the White House Coronavirus Task Force are saying the medical community was missing a significant amount of data

when setting expectations for this pandemic as a result. Bringing this back to World War II, Wimbledon has been canceled for the first time since World War II, but I don't know, maybe it'll be a banner year for ping pong. You can hit us with your coronavirus concerns anytime. We've got a listener voicemail line, 202-688-5944.

We're on Twitter at today underscore explained. I'm at ramusverm, and we're accepting emails todayexplained at vox.com. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only.

Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hello? You have a prepaid call. You will not be charged for this call. This call is from... An inmate at Monroe Correctional Complex.

This call will be recorded and monitored. If you wish to block any future calls of this nature, dial 7 now. To accept this call, press 5 now. To accept this call, press 5 now. To decline this call, hang up. Thank you. Hello, is this Arthur? Yes, this is Arthur Longworth. I'm looking for Sean

and Halima. Yeah, this is Sean. So Halima's on the line too with me. Sean, you're really broken up like you're underwater. Does it sound better? That's really broken up. Hold on a second. How's this, Arthur?

Is that better? Completely clear. Completely clear. I love it. Okay, cool. Great. Arthur, how you doing? Incarcerated.

We're fine. Where are you incarcerated? The Washington State Reformatory in Monroe, Washington. And how long is your sentence? I was convicted of murder when I was 19. I'm 55 now. I received a life without parole sentence. And I wanted to talk to you today to find out what it's like to be incarcerated now with this coronavirus pandemic.

Has that been on your radar? Before it appeared in the prison, it certainly wasn't on my radar until it kind of took over life here and changed the whole trajectory of the prison, no. Tell me exactly how that happened. How did it enter the prison and take over your life there? Earlier this month, the entire cell house I live in was put on lockdown. And we received notice that we were on quarantine lockdown because a guard had showed up

to work with coronavirus and that was the first time, first point where it entered the prison and I believe that was March 8th when that guard came to work with coronavirus. Tell me everything that happened after March 8th, as you remember it. They locked us down and they just locked us all doors and kept us locked up for just over two weeks. And they started with checking our temperatures. After a few days, they quit checking our temperatures and just let us ride it out for a couple weeks.

And then on previous Monday, they released us from that lockdown quarantine. And so this last week, we were able to go outside finally. And then on Thursday, the other cell house of 320 cells, over 400 and some people, was placed on lockdown. And they were placed on lockdown because another guard came to work with coronavirus. And since then, a prisoner is tested positive. And so that cell house is currently on lockdown. And also what's happened since then is the prison has become much more crowded because they opened up two m trying to bring down their populations because of the danger of the virus. So now this prison is becoming much more crowded. And so how did that change your day-to-day life or the lives of your fellow inmates? Well, I'm in a cell house that has 320 cells.

They're six foot by nine foot cells. They're very small, and a lot of them have two prisoners in them. Okay, so you got a guard who has the virus. The prison's overcrowded. You're on lockdown in there. Are you scared? That's overcrowded, you're on lockdown in there, are you scared? That's a good question, although it's hard to answer that word, scared. There's a real feeling of inevitability about it. You know, the virus was wreaking havoc right outside the walls. You know, the first place it showed up in the U.S. was just 15 miles away from here.

And so, I mean, there was an inevitability that it would get in here. And so prison is kind of an experience where virtually everything is out of your control. And so when something inevitable happens, you can just kind of hang on and find a way to survive it. The closest thing I can equate it with is like, you know, when you're locked in a cell in a giant old deteriorating cell house,

one of the biggest fears is like, there could be a fire. Nobody's going to come and unlock your cell. And so that's a very real fear. And what kind of caught my attention about this virus, it kind of feels like a fire has started in the prison. Anyway, sorry to go off on a tangent there, but... No, it's a really good and scary metaphor. So how is this fire spreading? I mean, how many people have tested positive since that one guard got it?

So far, two guards have tested positive and one prisoner. There's a reason that the one prisoner was tested. And the reason is that he had underlying health conditions and so he, for his underlying health conditions, was taken out of the prison to a neighboring hospital and in the neighboring hospital, he showed signs of the virus and they tested him and found out he had it. Are there steps that you're taking?

Are you washing your hands more? Are you covering up your face at all when you go out? Is that allowed even? That is absolutely not allowed in here. What I'm doing and what I can vouch for that others are doing around me is we're washing our hands as much as possible, not shaking hands, keeping as much space as we can, which is almost an exercise in ridiculousness

in here where we're so crowded together. Do you guys have hand sanitizer there? I mean, it sounds like, again, people outside don't have enough hand sanitizer to go around. I wonder if you have enough inside. It's my understanding that hand sanitizers make with alcohol. Is that true?

Yeah. Sorry to sound so ignorant, but I've been in prison my whole life. So that is not something that's allowed in prison. Anything without alcohol in it. Yeah. Arthur, I guess I just want to ask before I let you go. I know this call is costing you money. Do you feel like the prison is trying to keep you safe? Or is it just a fire you were talking about? Is it a fire that you're powerless have heard his question. The question is that do you feel like you're seeing the prison do anything to keep you safe?

Or is this another situation like the metaphor you described earlier with the fire and you feel a little bit powerless? Oh, completely powerless. And, you know, the question is coincidental because I just had a conversation this morning with another prisoner about this. And I feel like it's an apathy at the top. Just to give you a picture of what I'm talking about is the protocol has become that people sit in very close quarters in the chow hall during mealtimes. There are four-person tables. And the prison has gone to only seating one of us at each four-person table, which seems to be a social distancing protocol. At the same time,

we're required to stand in single file, very close proximity, 80 of us at a time, in order to pick up our tray. Or the Institute has a rule where only 150 prisoners can go to the yard, which of course creates a situation where everyone is pushing and shoving and crowding each other in order to be one of those 150 people on the yard. And then when we get to the yard, there's only eight phones that are available and they're 18 inches apart. I think maybe what that illustrates is the disconnect between, you know,

a bureaucratic attempt to create these social distancing and other protocols that society is doing and the reality on the ground in prison. There's a disconnect and a difference. Arthur, before we go, and I know we got to let you go, can I just ask you if there's anything else you wanted to say that you didn't get a chance to say that I didn't ask you about? Oh, great. Yeah, so I can ask your listeners

to donate to my legal defense fund. No, I'm just kidding. Do you have a legal defense fund? No, I'm just kidding. Do you have a legal defense fund? No, I don't. You know, I don't know if you did the math, but, you know, coming to prison when I'm 19

and being 55 now isn't a good thing. It speaks to a bigger problem than the immediate sea of the pandemic. Alright, I think that might be it. I really appreciate it. Can we pay for this call? I think he had to pay for it. Is there any way we could not have him pay for it? The call was already paid for, but if you guys have some extra money lying around, maybe you should

invest in some technology for your phone equipment. Burn! You guys are fun. I appreciate it. Thanks. Arthur Longworth is an inmate at the Moreau Correctional Complex in Washington state. He writes for the Marshall Project. We got in touch with the state's Department of Corrections to ask about Arthur's account of conditions at the prison. They weren't able to verify every last detail by publishing time, but let us know that there are now not two, but three employees who tested positive for COVID-19 at the complex. To protect their privacy, they wouldn't say it the employees

regards. After the break, this isn't just an issue at Monroe and Washington State. The coronavirus is a 50 states issue, and these 50 states have incarcerated more people than any other country on earth. It's Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month.

And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, R-A-M-P dot com slash explained, cards issued by Sutton Bank. Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. Daniel Gross, you write about incarceration and the criminal justice system for the New Yorker.

Things are bad in the free world right now, and they're promised to get much worse. How much worse is this going to get in America's prisons? Let me put it this way. Mass incarceration is a vector of disease. I've spoken to doctors about this. Factors like crowding, areas where you have to congregate in order to eat food, conditions like cells all lined up next to one another. Like a source told me that he's 21 inches away from the person next to him in another cell. These are the same risk factors that cause a disease to spread more quickly in society. Social distancing is not possible in many prisons.

Just to give you one taste of how much worse it can be inside the carceral system, in Rikers, Legal Aid NYC ran the numbers on how many people have tested positive for COVID-19, and the rate is drastically higher than in New York City, which already has one of the highest infection rates in the nation. So according to the Legal Aid Society in New York City, there are 167 cases in Rikers, and that's an infection rate of 3.6% of the population of Rikers Island Jail.

And New York City has an infection rate of less than half a percent. And the country is aware of how dangerous this is. The Bureau of Prisons announced that starting today on Wednesday, all federal prisons will be going into lockdown for two weeks. What are we seeing in other prisons across the country? Are any of them doing a particularly good job of handling this? I mean, things didn't sound promising at Arthur Longworth's prison in Washington state. And prisons in New York State have implemented lockdowns. And what we're really talking about when we say lockdown is essentially the same mechanics of solitary confinement. We're talking about people being confined to their cell for most of the day, being occasionally let out for particular activities like eating or calling loved ones. I've been hearing from a lot of my sources that people are not getting enough access to the phone. They might have one or two opportunities in the day to go talk to their loved ones. And these are folks who don't have anything else to do because all the programs have been canceled. And so one potential place where the disease could spread, according to some

of my sources, is these communal phones that guys are putting socks over. They're sliding socks onto the phone to prevent germs from getting on it and spreading to other people. In terms of what prisons are doing, most large prison systems that I've been following have canceled their non-essential programs. So classes would be canceled. Some vocational training kinds of programs or transitional training programs have been canceled. The step that many prisons have not taken is decarceration in large numbers. Decarceration meaning the release of at-risk prisoners,

elderly prisoners, people who are close to their parole, a reduction in the population so that the disease doesn't have the opportunity to spread as quickly. Decarceration might be like a new word to people. They might be much more familiar with its opposite. What are the kinds of decarceration out there? So there's several ways that folks can be released from prisons and jails. Within the jail system, it's often the mayor or the local prosecutors that have the power to allow someone to be released before they've had a trial.

So pre-trial, people who don't need to be incarcerated for whatever the conviction was. And then there's two other tools that are sort of lower level tools that can be used. One is just parole. People are coming toward the end of their sentence. They're eligible to be released. And usually a board of paroles can say, okay, this person has served enough time. They should be released. Medical parole is similar. If you're at risk, if you're elderly or you have a condition like asthma or heart disease, you can be released.

There's another category, which is clemency. And that's when an executive, oftentimes the governor or the president of the United States, makes the decision to release someone or commute their sentence and their sentence early because they've applied for clemency and shown accomplishments or shown a reason why they should be released. Have we seen efforts at decarceration in this current crisis?

We have seen small efforts at decarceration, particularly in the jail system across the United States. So in New York, as an example, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio together announced the release of a number of people who were incarcerated for violations of parole. So they were previously incarcerated, they were released, and then they were reincarcerated. Many of those folks have been released. The total numbers, though, don't seem to be making that much of a dent. So in New York, the number of parole violators released was just over 1,000, and the total prison population is in the tens of thousands.

And Rikers continues to have many thousands of people confined in a very small space. But you are seeing some really interesting collaborations that may grow in the coming days. You see local prosecutors who are normally responsible for putting people in jail collaborating with public defenders to actually reduce the populations in jails. It's a movement that I think is very localized right now. It's not spread across every system, but it's heartening and is a trend that could help this problem. Is there a political reluctance to just let a bunch of people out of jails and prisons right now, be it parole violators or on the other end of the spectrum, like clemency or even

pardons or something like that? I think there's a very powerful resistance to the use of clemency, parole, to release people who are pretrial even. So as an example, in New York, the district attorneys of the different boroughs, these are the prosecutors responsible for incarcerating people, they have taken a stance against the release of people from Rikers. This is true in many, many places across the country. Prosecutors make a public safety argument that we are less safe if these folks are released. Do you think that there's the potential that we'll see, you know, a sea change in how people feel about this idea of decarceration as this

crisis continues. I mean, there's just been so many instances of these major reversals, be it, you know, South by Southwest definitely won't be canceled to South by Southwest is definitely canceled. And that definitely seems like the right thing to do now, or be it just last week, President Trump saying we're going to have the country back in business by Easter. And just this weekend, the president saying, you know, that's absolutely not going to happen. Do you think come one, two, three more weeks, there might be, I don't know, some people coming to the table and considering decarceration who absolutely won't even consider it in the room right now? I want to hope so, but the fear that that won't happen keeps me up at night. Eight or nine days ago, I sent an email to the New York prison system asking if they were considering tools

like medical parole, standard parole, or whether the governor was considering clemency, like commuting sentences, releasing people in large numbers to address this problem. There were only a few cases in the New York prison system at that time. In the course of six days, the number of cases in the New York prison system quadrupled. And so at the time, they did not give me any indication that they were considering those measures, the outbreak has already gotten much worse. I do think that has the potential to change some minds,

but I think that there's an amount of fatigue in the public. I think when people read about more deaths and more infections and they see that it's starting to spread within the prison system, it's like people don't have any energy left to be outraged about that too. And I think that what it would take to change the nature of our prison system in this moment would be for people with the full authority to release individuals from the carceral system, taking political risks, doing courageous things, and using tools like clemency that may be controversial. But, you know,

Governor Cuomo, President Trump in the federal system, governors across the country, mayors, each have the power to individually decarcerate the system that they oversee for the sake of public health. They have that power. And I think it's up to the public, if they can muster the outrage, to demand it of them. And if they don't? A lot of people will die. We know the health system for people who are incarcerated is a lot worse than the health system outside. And as we know from the case of New York City,

this extremely robust, highly skilled, technologically advanced network of hospitals is totally overwhelmed. So imagine what it's going to be like in a prison infirmary in a couple weeks. Imagine what it's going to be like trying to relocate someone who's incarcerated to an outside hospital when they are in need of a ventilator. I fear that this outbreak, as bad as it is in the free world, will be far worse inside the prison system. Thank you.