Food Prison Abolition Project, MD, How Prison Food in Maryland Became Even Worse During COVID-19, 2021
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MARYLAND PRISON" ABOLITION ., PROJECT liolence,Hunger, and Premature Death: 0 Covid-19 in Maryland Prisons 0 Prisons didnotprovide adequate access to personal protective equipment for incarcerated folks.Individuals alsospoketo howsome correctional staffconsistently didnotwear masks or gloves whenpreparing anddelivering food. confinement Theonlymedical treatmentsomeprisons madeavailable to folksexhibiting Covid-19 symptoms wasTylenol-andeventhat was oftentimes withheld. As a response to Covid-19, prisons throughout Maryland went on indefinite lockdown-confining incarcerated individuals in their cells or housing units for at least 23 hours a day for months on end. Under lockdown, correctional officers in many prisons initially took over all components of food service-including meal preparation, delivery, and cleanup-that incarcerated dietary staff would normally be paid cents per hour to perform. Lockdown had drastic impacts on all aspects of the carceral food system. Folks we spoke with described: 7he food wasn't really nothing to start off with. Then when the Covid hit... the [incarcerated folks] are the ones who cook the food for the population. So, when the Covid hit, and they locked the jails down, there's nobody going to work. So now, it's like the staff is cooking the food, and you know they're not putting no heart into the food or whatever, so now it's terrible. It's even worse than what it was at first... They've got a rule, after three days, you're supposed to get a hot meal. They disregarded all that and just giving you bologna and cheese, cold bologna, cold cheese. I mean, it takes hours to melt, to defrost out, so you can eat it. And God knows how long they had it stored before this came up, so it just got, I mean, to the point where you had to go to commissary and spend money in order to maintain your weight because you couldn't eat it." - Brian, formerly incarcerated in multiple federal and Maryland state-run prisons during Covid-19 Food Quality The quality of food in every institution where folks we spoke with were incarcerated decreased significantly since the beginning of the pandemic. Folks described how: Mealsconsisted primarilyof cheap andnutritionally emptystarches designed to fill people up-even moresothanpriorto the pandemic. Fooditemsin bagsor trayssloshed togetherduringdelivery, resultingin soggyandunpalatable meals.AsJackie putit: "Theywerejust lockingpeople in a cage,feedingthemslop." "Being lockedupfor asmanyyearsasI had,youbeginto notexpectmuchout of DOC. Especially whenit comes to food.[DuringCovid] wedidn'tgetno hotmeals,noneof themealswashot, everymealyougotwascold.Even thoughtheyweresupposed to hehot. Yougota lot of starch-evenoutside of Covid yougota lot of starch-hut duringCovid yougotmoreandmore starch." - Alonzo, formerlyincarcerated at JCI The portions of food on a meal tray were diminished even further during Covid-19. Nearly every person we spoke with described how meals were "not enough to feed a child" -leaving folks in a constant state of hunger. Eating insufficient and nutritionally bankrupt meals for months or years during the pandemic also gravely impacted people's mental health. Some individuals developed depression and anxiety, while others used food to mentally disassociate from the inhumane conditions of confinement. "They don'ttreat youright in there.Theguards,theydon'tcare aboutyou.Sofar,I seenduringtheCovid, fivepeopledied... One personthatdiedin there,theygothimoutof hiscellin two days.Hewasdeadin hiscellfor twodays.Then anolderperson, hediedona chair.Hejust fell outbecause of COVID. It was crazy."- Wayne, formerlyincarcerated at RCI "OhmyGod.I wasgettingdepressed. Mysleepwasmessed up because I wassleeping somuchbecause therewasnothing elseto do...Andthenit got to thepointwhereyoucouldonly dosomuchsleeping andsoyou'reup.It's veryhard.I got verydepressed andmyanxietywasup.It's just veryhardfor me."- Chris,formerlyincarcerated at MCI-J • 0 Covid-19 Ii ~ImpactsonHealth Folks described: - . 11 0 Right now, I'm in bad shape. I got osteoarthritis, and they're telling me now that I might have to have a hip replacement. And on top of that, I've got ulcerative colitis, which is also a major illness. And I also have asthma and high blood pressure. And thenl I got anxiety and depression ... I wouldn't wish this on nobody. Can you imagine, when you have to use the bathroom, when that feeling hits your stomach that tells you you have to go to use the bathroom, you actually got like 10 seconds to get to a toilet and get your pants down. You can't control your bowels, you can't hold your bowels. And you go to the bathroom at least 15 to 20 times a day, it not more. So imagine how I make it to the bathroom in 10 seconds in this jail. It doesn't happen. Oh my god, my mental health is just gone. For two weeks, [Wicomico County Corrections Center] took my cane and didn't give me nothing to assist me for walking. And I, literally, had to hang on to stuff around the walls, and to lean on the tables tor support myself to even go get my trays and my medication. The last tour days of those two weeks, I literally crawled on the floor. I had to drag myself, my bottom halt, with my arms because I couldn't put no weight on my hips and my legs. And they did nothing." - Mr. Dennis Williams, currently incarcerated at the Wicomico County Corrections Center Commissary services in Maryland state- run prisons are managed by Keefe Group, a multibillion dollar corporation owned by private equity firm H.I.G Capital. 87% of all currently and formerly incarcerated folks we spoke with relied heavily on buying foods from the prison commissary in order to survive during the pandemic. In fact, folks consumed 73% of their daily calories on average from commissary foods as opposed to institutional meals. At the beginning of the pandemic, some Maryland prisons shut down commissary services entirely for one to three months. In prisons where commissary remained open, incarcerated folks were unable to work-and thus unable to receive the minimal wages paid to them for their labor-reducing folks' ability to purchase food items. Many people went hungry as a result-especially given folks' dependency on commissary to compensate for inadequate and unpalatable institutional meals. Other changes to commissary included: incarcerated "I lost so much weight. Until you start getting commissary, you're not living. You're a ghost, basically ... commissary prices went up [during the pandemic]. So now the people that's sending you money, or money that you got on the outside, now you've got to pay more while you 're locked up. Because they know that the food is shitty, and you need us, so we're going to raise them prices up so we get extra money." - Mr. Chambers, formerly incarcerated Detention Center • at Jennifer Road Resistance, Care, &-Retribution 0 0 Prison staff also weaponize food service and punish certain individuals or the entire incarcerated population in the face of resistance. Forms of retribution include: #There's four units in Dorsey Run. My building was the first that had an outbreak [of Covid-191, so the prison was trying to spread people out, and send people that was exposed to a different housing unit. All them guys bucked. They would not let you come in that jail, so [the prison] ended up sending a lot of them guys outside the jail as retaliation ... The people that didn't have any outbreaks would not let you come in there. The ones that protested, they sent them out the jail. Like you're going from a pre-release camp to a maximum security prison. They send you far away ... Like Dorsey Run's in Jessup. They'll send you to Cumberland, or they'd send you to [Eastern Correctional Institution], across the bridge ... They moved [incarcerated people] for protesting. There was eight to 12 of them. And Dorsey Run is pre-release. They send you ... until your time is up. Then when you'd get a ticket, it's going to add more time to your date. They added more time, and made you finish the rest of the sentence at supermax.n - Reggie, describing prisons' response Dorsey Run Correctional Facility to Covid-19 protests at MARYLAND PRISON" ABOLITION_, PROJECT The Maryland Food & Prison Abolition Project connects urban and small-scale farms to prisons to use food as a tool for resistance. foodandabolition.org l!Bim'.lft info@foodandabolition.org llB~Ul}.Dm @foodandabolition uo.n;;i......-. ~ ..........