“I’m TERRIFIED, I fear for my life”
JUST COVID ALERT Broome County Jail
                    January 17, 2021

The sheriff calls the Broome County Jail the safest place to be in these COVID times.

Here is a sample of what we hear from people inside:

“There are 20 positive cases in H pod and they are refusing B and E Tests even though they are showing symptoms and one of the correctional officers said some are looking awful like death”

“We found he [a person removed from the pod] is in the hospital and tested positive for corona…”

“I don’t understand. They are not testing everyone in a pod when someone ‘has covid’.  They either test us all or test every CO coming on shift. This is quite ridiculous!”

“I was quarantined for 9 days because of covid in the pod… and now again a few days later because another in here tested positive…. I am TERRIFIED, and I fear for my life!…

“I am in the jail on a parole violation. Since I’ve been here I’ve been in three quarantines. There have been numerous outbreaks in this jail. They are not testing the officers and not testing the inmates either.  Some officers are not wearing masks.  I have asthma…”

“They just turned off our phones so we can’t make any calls right now!“

“We are quarantined for 10 more days. I was just threatened by the CO”

“This jail runs on men and only men”

“A bunch of us are going on a hunger strike”

People inside are now very desperate to get the news out.   Family and friends make anxious calls daily to lawyers, the press, and state officials.

Contrary to statements by county officials, the jail remains a COVID hotspot.  Day after day, week after week people inside report cases of COVID infection among both the incarcerated and staff.  This is by policy design and deception.  Brutal unsanitary conditions and treatment worsen.

No one knows the extent of the infection since the county tests only those who report severe symptoms.  How many staff and incarcerated folks are tested?  The county has yet to report the number of tests, but it seems very very few over the last eleven months.  This past week one person was secretly hospitalized and only then tested—positive.  There is one instance where the county was forced to test a whole section of the jail, the section with those who do all the laundry and cooking for no pay. They needed the coerced labor. The result?  They found large numbers of cases.

The Sheriffs response to the unchecked spread of COVID in the jail (and then outside it) has been to impose illegal group punishment.  Solitary confinement is imposed on everyone if someone gets sick. Persons in multiple pods report being placed in solitary confinement in their cells for all but 45 minutes a day (to shower, contact lawyers or family, etc.), contravening state regulations. No one knows who is sick. Correctional Officers are often reported as delivering food rather than incarcerated workers due to COVID outbreaks.  Many inside report COs who regularly wear no masks.  Masks are few, sanitizer is lacking, cleaning has often been abandoned, and the heat seems to have been turned off in key pods (sections) of the jail. Persons unfortunate enough to be in the two dormitory pods (one for men, one for women) are stacked on bunk beds, with no ladders to get to the top bunk, and less than 3 feet from the next bunk bed–all while using common and unclean showers and toilets. Given the closure of courts, persons are now held interminably awaiting trial; there is no guarantee of a speedy trial, ever.  Persons who are convicted have not been transferred to state prisons, lingering in the far worse conditions in the local jail.  Indeed, many women report they would have been released for time served if they had been transferred to state prisons but are stuck for months and months in the jail, lacking basic hygiene products.

What can we do?

Tell the press to investigate and report on these conditions. If reporters in New York City can call into the jail, locals can as well. Write the press including:

Press and Sun Bulletin: Ashley Biviano ababbitt@gannett.com
WSKG: Gabe Altieri, galtieri@wskg.org , Jillian Forstadt jforstadt@wskg.org
WIVT: Jim Ehmke JimEhmke@nc34.com  
SUNY-Binghamton Pipedream: Nicole Kaufman nkaufma2@binghamton.edu
NY Post:  Gabrielle Fonrouge GabrielleFonrouge@gmail.com

Write to your elected county officials,

    County Executive Jason Garnar CountyExecutive@BroomeCounty.US  
    Your legislative representative list and finding guide here
and tell them they need to:

• Investigate jail conditions openly
• provide testing and vaccines to persons in the jail
• release as many persons as possible particularly those on short-term and technical parole violation charges

Write and tell the Governor and Attorney General they need to do the same.

Support JUST’s work:

• Send us copies of your messages: southern.tier@gmail.com
• Report news you hear to us: southern.tier@gmail.com
• Donate to help persons inside: JUST donation
• Join our next rally

http://www.justtalk.blog/index.php/2021/01/11/got-covid-get-punished/

Suspected of COVID?  You get punished. That’s the rule at the Broome County Jail.  Under the current administration it can’t be otherwise.  There are too many persons in the unsanitary jail, on too many minor charges. Too many persons are kept locked up due to untreated substance use and mental health illnesses.  Too many are awaiting trial, often for over a year; refuse to plead guilty and accept a punishing criminal record, and you will stay seemingly forever.  And above all too many are housed, in crowded COVID conditions, for other counties, the state, and the federal system–all to make money for the county, from $100 to $300/person per day.

Mass Solitary

What happens if someone reports they are ill?  They are dispatched to isolation in the medical unit, a fate worse than formal solitary. There they lose all communication with the outside world, access to regular exercise, conversation and contact with other human beings. Test positive, if you are tested–for very few tests have been administered and the county refuses to release positivity rates–and you remain in super-solitary for 10 to 14 days. After that period in medical solitary, you are sent to an intake “pod” or section of the jail, to quarantine for another 10 to 14 days with more restrictions. Facing a month of solitary, quarantine, and restriction, is it any wonder that so few will admit to being ill?

And it’s group punishment:  your friends and fellow incarcerated in your home pod are deemed as threats, ill or not, and put in lockdown.  For most people that means being locked in your cold cell alone for 23 hours and 15 minutes a day—you will have 45 minutes at best to phone someone to tell them you are still alive, shower, exchange a book, grab a very short conversation. It’s simply solitary on a mass basis.  Its so widespread that correctional officers have regularly been forced to deliver food across the facility, facilitating even more spread out into the community.

It’s a cold fate literally, for cells, especially in the women’s sections, are by multiple accounts very very cold.  Persons inside report the heat seems to have been turned off and they have been provided an extra blanket as compensation.

There is one exception to the solitary rule: there is a big dormitory room, now split into two quarantine sections, one for men and one for women.  There you sleep and live on a bunk bed, less than 3 feet from everyone else, sharing communal showers and toilets.

Pain and Protest

Dec 12, 2020 JUST Protest Outside Jail

To people inside and friends and family outside, unable to help, these are painful times. 

Is it any wonder that women speak out from inside the jail at inhumane conditions, the lack of basic hygiene, privacy and clothing needs, the inability to access any programs?  What official decided to stop friends and family, even before COVID times, from sending in from Amazon s bras and basic Christian crosses? Should it surprise anyone that threats of retribution and more are meted out regularly to grievances over food by teenagers and diabetics, the lack of masks and sanitizer, the failure to provide adequate time out of cells and access to phones and tablets to contact loved ones?  Or that hunger strikes have now broken out in the jail?

So many persons are suspected of infection, and so few tested, that most of the jail has been in COVID solitary conditions for weeks on end.  People inside have called out to multiple community organizations, the press, their lawyers, and the courts for relief.  Protests occur regularly still outside the jail and county offices.  To date, to no avail:  our elected officials and health department see no evil, hear no evil, fail to act at every turn. Meanwhile the pain, and protest, build.