December 12, 2020
Community Activists Rally on COVID in the BC Jail
Bring Them Home for the Holidays!
The dire predictions of activists and health experts have come true. The Broome County Jail, for the second time this year, is a COVID-19 hotspot. This was anticipated. Yet county officials did little to prevent or mitigate outbreaks.
After initially denying the outbreak’s significance, county leaders have been forced to acknowledge the outbreak’s severity. Little other information has been provided to the community or incarcerated people. No hard numbers of cases or tests conducted have been offered.
A few things are clear: pods throughout the jail are on lock-down, transfers to programs and state facilities are suspended, incarcerated people’s access to communications are limited, and court actions are even slower than usual. The vast majority of persons in the jail are convicted of nothing, lingering there on minor charges or technical parole/probation charges. There is no programming, no consistent medical/sanitation care, and almost everyone is in unsanitary solitary conditions. COs routinely refuse to wear masks. People in the Broome County Jail are not just incarcerated, they are trapped and forced to catch COVID.
Today Broome County community organizations and the friends and families of the incarcerated will be holding a closed car rally on Lt. Van Winkle Drive at Noon to protest these intolerable conditions. We want our loved ones home and in safe conditions.
The community’s demands:
- Immediately release anyone at high risk for infection, the disabled, elderly, or immunocompromised
- Release those serving short sentences or for probation/parole violations
- Provide testing, sanitation supplies, medical treatment, and adequate nutrition
- Report regularly on the number of tests and positivity rate for staff and incarcerated
- Ensure those coming home have a discharge and treatment plan, including medical needs, food, and housing resources
- Ensure COs wear masks when in the facility and suspend those who refuse.
- Make phone/video calls free and end predatory commissary pricing
- Provide transparent, public dissemination of these measures
- Cut the sheriff’s budget and reinvest those resources in supports for low-income people
