What It’s Like To Be Trapped In A Women’s Prison During A Pandemic
MAR 15, 2021
Peering through the thick bars cutting a horizontal strata in the window, I watch the streams of fog soften the edges of the housing unit’s silhouettes lined up outside. Towering stadium lights illuminate the prison grounds when it is dark; this morning they beam a soft light through the mist. This is what mass incarceration looks like at 5:00 am.
Turning on the lamp that’s fastened to the metal frame of my prison bunk, I adjust the coarse, orange fabric of the prison-issued face mask I’ve tied over it. Transformed from Covid-19 mitigation, it’s now infusing my bunk area with a calming marmalade glow. I’ve found that it softens the reality of the cold cinder block wall that runs the length of my lumpy mattress. I live in a room that often holds eight women at a time, in a space the size of a one car garage.
That anything related to Covid-19 is calming is ironic; prisons are a nightmare scenario for an out-of-control virus. 1 in 5 incarcerated people in the United States has tested positive for the coronavirus, which is four times higher than the general population. In California, where I’m incarcerated, that rate is one in 4. Read More HERE