Fla. inmates face more risk, isolation
About 1 in 4 test positive in Fla. since last spring; more than 200 have died
About 1 in 4 have tested positive for virus since last spring.
PALM BEACH, Fla. – Alexandra Barry has never been inside a prison, but pieces of her life remain there.
Two of those pieces are men in Florida facilities who she hasn’t been able to visit because of ever-changing restrictions surrounding the coronavirus and protective custody limitations. She is constantly concerned about their wellbeing, both physically and mentally, because of the virus.
Another piece is the woman sentenced to 50 years for killing her brother, James Barry, in 2016. Melanie Eam is sitting in the Florida Women’s Reception Center in Ocala where half the population has tested positive for the virus, according to the latest numbers from the Florida Department of Corrections.
Barry, who lives near Lantana, said that even as a family member of a crime victim, the situation in the prisons has been “eye-opening” for her, especially the limitations on visits and communication in general.
“It’s a nightmare. We’re social animals. Just because somebody made mistakes doesn’t mean they should be punished even more,” she said.
For more than a year, officials, family members and advocates of the incarcerated at Florida state prisons have navigated around the restrictions intended to protect loved ones inside, even as coronavirus cases and deaths increased there.
Across the state prisons, more than 200 people have died from the virus and nearly 18,000 have tested positive since visitations were suspended in March 2020.
In the South Bay Correctional Facility, a men’s prison in western Palm Beach County privately run by the GEO Group, 456 incarcerated people have tested positive as of April 7 and at least eight have died from the virus since testing began last spring, according to department records.
Last week, the department announced vaccines – which now are available to residents ages 16 and older in Florida – would be available to those who wish to receive them in state prisons, but did not release a timeline or a rollout plan.
Barry said the last year has taught her a lot, especially about how important it is “to be in contact with your loved ones during these times.”
“It’s daunting and scary,” she said about the virus in the prisons. “And we still need to get out of this.”
COVID-19 killed more than the death penalty
When Debra Bennett-Austin went to the South Florida Reception Center prison on June 25 to drop off donations of masks and cleaning items, she learned there were two women who died of COVID-19 at the facility on the same day she was there: Tyra Williams and Josefa Davila.
She said as she sat at Williams’ funeral, what was happening inside the prisons hit her especially hard.
“Knowing it happened while sitting in a chapel and seeing her family walk in, it’s horrible,” she said. “And it’s not going to be the last one.”
Since the first reported coronavirus death at a Florida Department of Correction facility in April 2020, at least 213 inmates have died from the virus as of this April 7.
That is more than twice the amount of death row inmates executed by Florida since 1979, a span of 42 years. It is unknown if anyone on death row died from the virus.
Though Florida typically has the third-highest population of incarcerated people in the United States – behind Texas and California – it is second in total deaths and just shy of California’s first place number of 217, according to data gathered by The Marshall Project as of April.
As of April 7, there were more than 79,000 people being held in prisons in Florida and about 95,000 in California prisons.
As first reported by the Orlando Sentinel, the number of deaths in Florida prisons rose to 590 in total during 2020 after averaging a little more than 400 deaths during the previous four years.
That’s an increase over the period of 45%.
Since tests were first administered in the spring of 2020, 17,986 incarcerated people have tested positive for the virus in Florida custody, or about 1 in 4 inmates, as of April 7, according to department records.
By comparison, about 1 in 10 Floridians have tested positive for the virus overall, state records show.
When it comes to deaths, 1 in 373 inmates has died from the coronavirus. Across the state, 1 in 635 residents has died, according to state data.
As of April 7, there were 13 confirmed active cases of the virus within all state prisons, according to data from the Florida Department of Corrections
Bennett-Austin was released from Lowell Correctional, near Ocala, in 2018 and created the nonprofit Change Comes Now, which advocates for the incarcerated in Florida. The state’s largest women’s prison, Lowell, was hit especially hard with the virus. As of April 7, there were 1,015 positive cases, a total nearly as large as the prison’s capacity and two deaths as of April.
Bennett-Austin said the summer was especially hard with the virus in the state prisons, but it’s still difficult to get information about what’s going on both inside and out.
Visiting: Plastic barriers, no shared meals, limited time
For the first time in almost a year, 8-year-old Alexa Feliciano was able to hug her father in January.
David Gagne has been in prison for more than a decade, said her mother, Justine Feliciano.
When the coronavirus made its way into Florida’s detention centers, families and visitors were kept out until late 2020. Even touching wasn’t allowed until the winter holidays out of precaution for the possible spread of the coronavirus.
Justine Feliciano said her daughter is the type of child to jump all over her father, covering him in hugs and kisses and sit in his lap, just as if he were home with them in Homestead.
“But she can’t do that. It’s one hug in and one hug out,” Feliciano said.
Before January, the last time Feliciano’s daughter was able to see and hug her father was in February 2020, just weeks before visitation was shut down.
She said her daughter is already in therapy over her father’s incarceration and the lack of interaction makes it worse. They can’t spend time together like they used to and can’t see each other’s faces as they wear masks.
According to a 2015 study by the nonprofit ChildTrends, more than 5 million children, or about 7% of all U.S. children, have had a parent in jail or in prison, which previous research connects to childhood health issues and behavior problems, as well as to poor mental and physical health into adulthood.
Vaccinations within reach, families hope for normal soon
Denise Rock, the president of the inmate advocacy group Florida Cares, said as things on the outside slowly return to normal, with visitations to nursing homes, vaccination rollouts and even football games going on, things still remain slow on “getting back to normal” for those inside prison.
Rock said it was frustrating to see visitation open up in nursing facilities sooner and with fewer restrictions, even when more people in those facilities
have died from the virus in the state than in Florida prisons.
Across the state, long-term care facilities began reopening to visitors in September. As of early April, more than 10,948 residents of those facilities have died from COVID-19, according to data from the Florida Department of Health.
“Why are we so slow to get back to normal when the rest of society has gone nearly back to normal?” Rock said.
In a written statement to The Post, Mark Inch, secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections, said prisons are planning to resume many suspended programs, continue to have modified visitation and bring volunteers back into facilities to support inmates.
No timeline was provided. Inch instead said the department would continue to monitor the situation.
One of those steps back to normalcy is the vaccine.
When vaccines first became available in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would not be releasing vaccines into the state prisons before the general population, going against recommendations from public health experts.
In recent weeks, the department said the medical staff at its facilities provided overviews of the vaccines, including benefits, potential side effects and more details to help educate the prison population.
In addition, the staff asked the incarcerated if they would opt in to be vaccinated. About 33,000, or less than half of the population, said yes, according to the department. It’s unclear if everyone in state facilitates has been asked or educated on the vaccines.
On April 6, the department said the Florida Department of Health and the state Division of Emergency Management would provide COVID-19 vaccines to the prison populations, but no timeline or rollout was provided.
Rock said she hopes more correctional officers will take advantage of the vaccine as well so that when they go home or out to the supermarket or gatherings with friends, they won’t be bringing a potentially deadly virus back with them.
Department records show at least seven state corrections staff members died from the virus and 5,369 had tested positive as of April.
Barry said until you have someone behind four walls whom you care for, you really don’t know what the isolation has been like in the last year.
Due to registration issues and isolation protocol over the last several months, she said she still has not seen her two loved ones, who she asked not to be named.
She said once she is able to go in person, the fact that their facial expressions will be hidden behind masks is difficult. She hopes the vaccine can speed up normalcy again.
“I would just think it would be wise the ones that want (the vaccine) get it and help speed up the process of being able to visit our loved ones,” she said.
With his asthma condition and people constantly getting sick around him in the last year, Feliciano said her husband has been lucky. When she spoke with him in recent weeks, he said he is ready and willing for the vaccine whenever he can get it.
“I hope (the Department of Corrections) keeps moving forward. Hopefully, by summer we will be back to normal,” she said.