Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson: “COVID-19 Cases Continue to Rise in Michigan Prisons” (April 23, 2020).
Ashley Lucas, former director of the Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan, says that the situation inside Michigan prisons is harrowing. “People inside prisons are absolutely terrified right now. They are literally living in cages…it’s an absolutely terrifying situation,” says Lucas. She says its wrenching to have to temporarily suspend the Prison Creative Arts Project, a program that Lucas says celebrates peoples’ lives and allows individuals the space to assert their own humanity.
William Lopez, a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and Faculty Director of Public Scholarship at the National Center for Institutional Diversity, says people in immigration detention are facing similar issues to those who are incarcerated in Michigan jails and prisons. “Folks who are detained who are scheduled to be deported are no longer able to be deported,” says Lopez. Due to the halt in deportation folks are caught in detention facilities and are unaware when they will be able to leave. He says there is an enormous amount of psychological and emotional stress among the individuals stuck in this limbo.
