Prison visitations meet arbitrary restrictions
On Oct. 2, the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) resumed visitation for 94,000 individuals locked away in prisons around our state. Formany of the incarcerated, the announcement came as a welcome relief fromthe isolation, lengthy lock downs and sporadic quarantines that have defined the better part of their 2020.
But the restrictions, posted on the FDC website, underscore a double standard between those in the freeworld and those locked behind bars. To be clear, visitation does not directly affect me, but as the director of a program that teaches writing in prison, it affects hundreds of our students. Our programs stopped abruptly alongside visitation in mid-March, and resuming them is on our minds as the rest of the state enters Phase 3. But I am far more concerned with our students having access to their families right nowthan I amto our classes.
Phase 3 allows schools, restaurants, bars, salons and other businesses to reopen under full capacity, and local governments to resume in-person meetings. The FDC has taken amore cautious approach to visitation, which is restricted to the immediate family, denying access to long-standing boyfriends or girlfriends. All physical contact, including the much-coveted hug thatwas allowed at the beginning and end of all visits pre-COVID, is strictly prohibited. The vending machines— Michelin-star alternatives to prison chow— are off limits. And everyone has to remain seated for the entire visit, restricted to their side of the plastic barrier that has been installed for additional safety measures. If visitors need to use the bathroom, well, they have to leave. Butwhy? Visitors and the incarcerated don’t use the same bathrooms, sowhat’s the problem?
A guarded approach to reopening correctional facilities makes sense, since the only way the coronavirus can infiltrate into their bubble is when people bring it in. But Florida’s track record thus far points to how miserably the state has failed to protect the country’s third largest prison population. The FDC reports 16,350 positive cases throughout its 50-plus prisons with 134 deaths, ranking it second in the nation for both infections and deaths. Over 3,000 of the 24,000 FDC employees have been infected, with three recorded deaths.
It’s common to hear people on the outside complain about howhard it is to be separated from family for months on end. They say that they feel like they’re in prison, but they have no idea. Inside the guarded compound is a prison within a prison. No air-conditioned dorms. No video or zoom calls. Noway to social distance. Hand-washing is limited to a single hotel size bar of soap distributed weekly. No hand sanitizer. No recreation. No library. No programs, religious or educational.
In some instances, even the sun has been denied. Quarantined dorms means men and women cannot walk to the chowhall. Instead, they receive bagged lunches and dinners that often consist of bologna and peanut-butter sandwiches, twice daily. The tension from lack of exercise and distraction of any kind rises in tandem with increased vitamin deficiencies.
Screening, social distancing, facemasks and hand-washing are all part of the preentry protocol for visitation. I get it. But the ban on hugging? Itmakes no sense. The very officers who are patting down visitors and strip searching the incarcerated before and after they see their familymembers are the very ones who then go back onto the compound and interact with the entire incarcerated population.