The Economist - UK (2022-03-19)

32 The Economist March 19th 2022
United States

Lifelockedup

Rottenporridge

CHICAGO

America’sprisonswereina poorstatebeforecovid-19.Nowtheyareworse

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33 Air conditioninginprisons

34 Transwomeninsport

35 Theracetoendabortion

35 Snowdays

38 FixingPuertoRico

39 Lexington:JusticeandMrsThomas

T

he inmates at Logan Correctional Cen­

tre,  a  women’s  prison  in  rural  Illinois,

have  to  endure  a  lot.  The  kitchens  are  in­

fested  with  cockroaches.  The  ceilings  are

crumbling.  Many  of  the  buildings  are  full

of black mould. The showers and toilets of­

ten  break  down,  and  the  plumbing  occa­

sionally  backs  up,  pumping  sewage  onto

the floors. According to Lauren Stumbling­

bear, a 36­year­old former inmate who was

released last July after serving nearly a de­

cade  for  taking  part  in  an  armed  robbery,

perhaps  craziest  of  all  were  the  raccoons.

The critters were living in the housing unit

of the prison, she says. “They would come

down through holes in the ceiling.”

From March of 2020, however, even the

raccoons  seemed  mild  compared  with

what prisoners had to cope with. When co­

vid­19 arrived, they were confined to their

cells. For the first two weeks they could not

shower  or  make  phone  calls.  They  could

not use the commissary, because it was run

by  prisoners  who  were  no  longer  allowed

to move around, and had to eat sandwiches

brought  to  their  cells.  “We  sat  there  for

months  just  not  doing  anything,”  says  Ms

Stumblingbear.  Covid  ripped  through  the

prison  anyway.  Two  years  later,  the  latest

lockdown has only just been lifted. 

Conditions  in  America’s  prisons  were

terrible even before the pandemic. Like Lo­

gan,  many  have  been  dilapidated,  over­

crowded  and  understaffed  for  decades.  A

federal  investigation  of  Alabama  prisons

in 2019 exposed rape, murder and drug traf­

ficking. Guards not only failed to prevent it

but were sometimes implicated.

The  pandemic  has  pushed  the  system

close  to  collapse.  “Inhumane  conditions

prevail  in  prisons  and  jails  in  the  United

States at all levels of government, federal,

state  and  local,”  says  Jon  Ossoff,  a  Demo­

cratic senator from Georgia, who launched

a  working  group  on  conditions  in  federal

prisons  in  February.  Even  as  the  virus  re­

cedes, chronic staff shortages suggest con­

ditions may not improve much.

According to data from the Department

of Justice, in 2018 the number of deaths in

state prisons hit the highest level since re­

cording started in 2001. Though illness ac­

counted  for  the  vast  majority,  homicides

and  suicides  also  set  records.  Preliminary

data for 2020 show deaths in state and fed­

eral prisons increased by 46% over 2019—

unsurprisingly,  given  how  fast  covid

spread  inside.  Violence  may  well  have  in­

creased  too,  but  it  is  hard  to  tell,  because

state  departments  of  corrections  often  do

not  release  information  about  it  (local

jails,  which  are  usually  reserved  for  sus­

pects awaiting trial, are even worse). So ev­

idence  is  patchy.  A  single  jail  in  St  Louis

had  four  riots  last  year,  as  prisoners  prot­

ested about delays to their court hearings. 

One  silver  lining  is  that  fewer  people

are  in  prison.  Data  collated  by  the  Prison

Policy Initiative, a think­tank, showed that

the total number of people in state and fed­

eral prisons fell by around 14% from Janu­

ary  2020  to  December  2021,  to  the  lowest

level in decades. That does not necessarily