Floridians with loved ones in prison fear lightning spread of coronavirus behind bars
Brittany Graham last saw her husband in March 2019 and worries that she may never see him again. Thirty-four years old and the mother of three young boys, Graham lives in Port Charlotte in South Florida. Her husband, Lavontaye, lives six hours away, an inmate at the Franklin Correctional Institution in the Panhandle, serving an eight-year sentence for drug trafficking.
Years before he was sentenced in 2016, his spleen — the organ that produces antibodies — was removed in 2004, putting him at greater risk of a grave outcome if he were to contract the coronavirus.
“He cannot create any antibodies to fight anything, not even a common cold,” said Graham. “If he comes in contact with the virus, it’s a done deal for him.”
In its latest website update, the Florida Department of Corrections announced on Thursday that 16 of its employees have tested positive for the virus.
According to the same website, the grand total of inmates with coronavirus is 0.
“Inmates have been and are being tested for COVID-19,” said the FDC in a statement to the Miami Herald. It would not say how many had been tested, how many have tested negative and how many results are pending, making it impossible to know anything.
The rapid spread of coronavirus in other prisons and jails, most notably New York’s Rikers Island, shows the potential risk for prisoners who live practically on top of each other and can’t easily practice the social distancing and disinfecting guidelines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to minimize the spread of the coronavirus.
More than 150 inmates and 100 staffers in that state’s prisons have been reported to have the virus.
Jails and prisons in various states, including California, New York and Texas, have also started releasing pretrial detainees with minor or non-violent charges and some inmates who are at or near the very end of their sentence or who are elderly or ill.
Florida ranks third among states with the highest number of inmates. The state’s prisons account for a little under 100,000 inmates — around a tenth of the total incarcerated population in state prisons in the United States.
The Miami Herald analyzed year-end prison population data for each state from the National Corrections Reporting Program. The numbers are from 2016 — the most recent year for which data is publicly available. Participation in the survey is voluntary and certain states like New Mexico, North Dakota and Oregon do not report their numbers. The data also does not account for inmates in facilities run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
According to the most recent FDC report, a little more than half of Florida’s inmate population is incarcerated for violent offenses like homicide, sexual offenses and robbery, and a fifth for property crimes like theft, burglary and vandalism.
Lavontaye Graham is among the nearly 14,000 inmates, or 14 percent of the inmate population, serving time for narcotics-related charges.
Brittany Graham spoke to the warden of the facility, who agreed that her husband was at greater risk than even some of the elderly inmates. But he said he could do nothing to protect him until he became terminally ill, she said.
“FDC’s primary goal is ensuring the health, safety and security of FDC staff and the inmates in our care and custody,” said the FDC in a statement to the Miami Herald. “We are working closely with our medical services provider and have an evolving response plan based on ongoing developments.”
The FDC has suspended visitation, implemented screening for anyone entering their facilities, stopped non-critical inmate transfers, and waived medical co-pays for inmates who are experiencing flu-like symptoms.
Some academics who study health policy and infrastructure believe that the number of coronavirus cases among Florida inmates is purportedly zero only because there has not been enough testing.
“Given the fact that an increasing number of people who work in corrections facilities throughout the state have tested positive for the illness over the last week, it seems likely that incarcerated people, too, have been exposed,” said Jessica L. Adler, an assistant professor of health policy and history at Florida International University.
Faye Taxman, a criminology professor at George Mason University said that low testing “means that we cannot identify individuals that have the virus [and may not be symptomatic] but they are contagious.”
“Given that the virus spreads easily, the lack of any cases is merely a function of not knowing,” she said.
Crisis in the making
Florida’s Department of Corrections’ health services have come under fire in the past few years. A recent audit found that the state’s decision to privatize prison healthcare is costing the department $40 million more per year than it would have cost to keep the service in house. Forbes reported in 2018 that 181 Florida inmates did not get treated for Hepatitis C even though they qualified.
More recently, the FDC reported that its operating budget for health services was underfunded by $55 million in fiscal year 2018-19.
The Miami Herald’s analysis of FDC’s healthcare budget revealed that while expenses per inmate had increased from roughly $3,700 in fiscal year 2015-16 to $4,700 in fiscal year 2017-18, it was offset by the growing share of inmates 60 and over — a group that is more susceptible to illnesses and health complications.
The Herald found that the share of inmates age 60 and up rose from 6.7 percent to 8 percent from fiscal years 2015-16 to 2017-18.
According to a March 18 CDC study, people 55 and over who contracted COVID-19 account for higher hospitalization rates and case fatalities. Latest FDC statistics show 7,664 Florida inmates are 60 and up.
Among them is Bruce Weisz, serving a life sentence on charges of first-degree murder and robbery with a deadly weapon. He is 67, been denied clemency once, parole twice and has so far served 32 years. He is presently an inmate at Martin Correctional Institution in Indiantown.
Weisz was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2008 and while weakened by chemotherapy, fell and broke his femur, said his wife Doreen, a resident of Boca Raton. He also has thyroid issues and high cholesterol.
She is worried that there will soon be a big outbreak at the facility that will be hard to contain.
“It [COVID-19] is very contagious and I don’t want him getting it,” she said. “He is at risk.”
She is trying to keep his spirits up by writing emails to him daily and occasionally sending cards.
Doreen said the inmates at Martin Correctional are being given extra soap and instructed to shower regularly and maintain distance from other inmates as much as possible.
Weisz lives in a two-man cell. Many of Florida’s incarcerated, however, reside in dorms housing scores of inmates, making conditions ripe for a rapid spread of contagion.
Sitting Ducks
Winter Haven resident Kim Lawrance’s daughter, Taylor, was 15 when she was arrested and charged with armed burglary. She was sentenced in 2015 to 10 years in prison and 10 more on probation.
Taylor is now 20 and an inmate at the Florida Women’s Reception Center in Ocala, one of the facilities where an FDC employee tested positive for the virus.
“They really, truly are sitting ducks,” said Lawrance. “You start worrying: Is it just a matter of days and they are all going to be falling out like in a war?”
Lawrance said the prison authorities have cleared out one dorm for those who need to be quarantined. Inmates at the facility are also repeatedly being given instructions to wash hands and walk six feet apart.
She is still anxious.
Taylor lives in a dorm that houses around 150 inmates in bunk beds. She’s already had conversations with her friends and bunkmates and made pacts about taking care of each other if one of them falls sick, Lawrance said.
“Walking six feet apart and all of that will not matter when they are sleeping two feet apart,” she said. “If an officer brings it in, that’s it!”
Dr. Scott Allen, a medical professor at University of California Riverside, said that controlling the spread in prisons is of prime importance, if not for humanitarian grounds, then from a public health perspective because “any place of rapid spread will overwhelm the local public health infrastructure.”
“The name of the game is to avoid the peaks and try to flatten the curve,” he said.
Some prison reform advocates, like Keith Harris of the Florida Justice League, say that the FDC is not doing enoughand urges the government to release “those from prison who pose no risk, and those who are medically disabled, ill and so old they can barely walk but were left to die.”
“Where is the line drawn on the value of someone’s life in prison?” he said. “Where do we stand as Americans when it comes to ensuring that all citizens, in prison, or not, are given the equal protection and safety when the threat of loss of life is at hand and can be prevented?”
Graham’s husband is in minimal custody at the Franklin Correctional Institution and like Taylor Lawrance lives in a dorm with countless others, the mother of three said.
She worries that he will not be reunited with his family again in 2024, when he is scheduled to be released. He is only 38.
“My husband is young and still has his whole life,” she said. “He wasn’t given a life sentence.”
Miami Herald staff writer Ben Conarck contributed to this report.
This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 3:32 PM.
