Covid-19 and Incarceration

Starting in March 2020, DCC researchers joined many other activists, advocacy groups, and scholars in calling for immediate measures to protect incarcerated people from the dire threat of Covid-19. People confined in prisons, jails, and immigrant detention centers face particularly desperate conditions during public health emergencies.

The Carceral State Project believes that ethical considerations and empirical research support the abolitionist platform of broad-based release of people confined in these institutions. The sections on this page include policy reports, public commentary, and media appearances by DCC researchers about Covid-19, and firsthand reports from inside Michigan prisons by Efrén Paredes, Jr., Tyrone Lee Reyes, and other people who generously shared their stories and experiences with the DCC project.

COVID-19 and Prison Resources: Visit this separate resource page (link) for a compilation of media coverage and academic articles about the COVID-19 pandemic in correctional facilities and a portal to database trackers in all 50 states and the federal prison and immigration detention systems.

“I Don’t Want To Die in Prison”: Prison Conditions, Decarceration, and Mutual Aid in the Age of COVID-19: In July 2020, the Carceral State Project’s Confronting Conditions of Confinement team published this white paper co-written with the Michigan Criminal Justice Program of the American Friends Service Committee. “I Don’t Want To Die in Prison” presents an evidence-based case for decarceration as the only humane and meaningful response to the COVID-19 pandemic in prisons, based on extensive documentation of current conditions from phone calls, letters, and other messages by people incarcerated in the state of Michigan. Click here for a downloadable pdf version and visit this site for a flippable book version.

DCC Researchers: Public Commentary

Covid-19: Efrén Paredes, Jr., Reporting from Inside

Efrén Paredes, Jr., is an alumnus of the Prison Creative Arts Project and is currently incarcerated at Lakeland Correctional Facility, a prison in Coldwater, Michigan. He received life without parole as a juvenile in 1989 and is a “wrongly convicted Latino former high school student who was arrested at age 15 for a crime he did not commit.” The state of Michigan has incarcerated Efrén in multiple facilities in its prison system for more than 31 years. Learn about his case and quest for freedom at Free Efrén Paredes, Jr. and at this Change.org petition page.

Since March 2020, Efrén has published frequent updates on the Covid-19 crisis at Lakeland Correctional Facility on his Facebook page and has granted the DCC project permission to reproduce his reports on this website as part of the Covid-19 documenting project. Efrén told the DCC project: “What is most important to me is casting a spotlight on what is taking place in Michigan prisons during this crisis and giving voice to the many people whose stories and experiences otherwise wouldn’t be heard.”

Tyrone Lee Reyes: Covid-19 at Cotton Correctional Facility

Tyron Lee Reyes is currently incarcerated at Cotton Correctional Facility, part of the men’s state prison complex in Jackson, Michigan. He is from Flint and has been confined since 1997, when he was 16 years old. Tyrone shared these personal reports on his experiences during the Covid-19 crisis and gave the DCC project permission to publish them.

Inside Accounts: Covid-19 in Michigan Prisons