New York City’s Correctional Health Providers refuses to say how lots of individuals put behind bars at Rikers Island have actually contracted COVID-19 considering that the beginning of the pandemic.
Since of an absence of prevalent screening, that number is nearly definitely an undercount.
In May, Patricia Kim, a discharge preparation social employee at Rikers Island, blew the whistle when she wrote an affidavit implicating city officials of “failing to implement effective, standard, common-sense preventative procedures to avoid transmission of COVID-19 to its clinically susceptible detainees.” In the affidavit, the existence of which has not formerly been reported, Kim described glaring inconsistencies in between the prison’s main COVID-19 policies and its on-the-ground reality. Social distancing and mask-wearing are inconsistent in the poorly ventilated facility, she composed. Some jailed people oversleep beds just a couple of feet apart. Correctional officers and other personnel move in between units used to apprehend COVID-19 favorable people and the rest of the prison, possibly spreading the infection throughout the center.
There is little acknowledgment within Rikers of the risk of asymptomatic spread and even efforts to identify symptoms are inadequately imposed, Kim composed.
Lawyers with New York’s Legal Aid Society have actually protected the release of hundreds of individuals since the beginning of the pandemic but other clients have actually been rejected release– including lots of who are elderly and have serious medical conditions.
What made you step forward? What forced you to compose the affidavit?
It’s the exact same as why I decided to work on [Rikers] Island as part of Correctional Health Services or getting into social work in basic. It’s observing and having the experience as an Asian individual of color of the considerable lack of resources and a really substantial disparity in terms of the sort of care that a person gets compared to white folks.
When you enter an environment where individuals acutely have been in need of care because their youth, when you see that these interventions have not been made, and now we’re experiencing a pandemic– it’s extraordinarily important that we continue to promote for folks in their freedom. There is no reason why they need to be waiting to capture an infection in a jail.
And were you scared of retaliation?
Definitely. Absolutely.
Could you stroll me through what a normal workday is for you?
I am fortunate enough to have an automobile therefore I can drive onto the island and park in the parking area there. Others would need to take mass transit to get to the island, which is an entire other issue in terms of COVID. However then after we park in the primary lots, we need to go through the security structure to where the path buses are. And these are all essentially school buses that will take you to the different centers on the island. You take this bus with other individuals– that’s staff, officers.
These buses in the summer now, it’s extremely hot so the windows are all up and the AC is running so it’s not like you’re really getting ventilation. And I have actually observed consistently needing to get onto the bus after a group of staff and officers leave their tour wh