People are dying in Cook County jails. Here's how to help them.
03/31/20
by Mairead Case
The first confirmed death of an incarcerated person from COVID-19 in Illinois happened yesterday. Their name is not yet released, but when it is we will lift up their memory. As we mourn the dead, we continue to fight like hell for the living.
As of yesterday, and in addition to 17 people in ICU at St. Joseph's, including 12-14 on ventilators, there are at least 100 prisoners inside Statesville who have fevers but have not been transferred to a hospital. The jail was already crowded, so the sick are double-bunked. Conditions are not contained, sanitary, or being directly addressed by officials. "There are many more deaths coming, in both Cook County Jail and from the Illinois Department of Corrections," said Sharlyn Grace, Executive Director of Chicago Community Bond, in a post on Facebook that also calls out "the inadequate actions of our elected officials. Many of these deaths were preventable, and it's devastating and demoralizing to see the human cost of this indifference and inaction."
It is of course very important to stay informed about what's going on in jails around the country. (A great place to start: Dr. Amanda Klonsky's reports at PBS and on the Hitting Left With the Klonsky Brothers show, as well as the COVID update page at Uptown People's Law Center.) But if we only flat-share news of bad things, it's easy to get stuck in mourning, when the concurrent reality is that there's still time to connect with organizing and advocacy. We can still shift this. "De-mobilization and a sense of inevitability are harmful right now," says Grace, while adding that "this is not the same as rejecting that people take time to grieve." Even something as simple as signing a petition or donating $5 matters, a lot.
Here are some suggestions of ways to act, and help:
IDOC (Illinois adult prisons) demands & actions
IDJJ (Illinois youth prisons) demands & actions
JTDC (Illinois youth jail) demands & actions
Cook County Jail (adult jail) demands, actions
ICE enforcement & immigration detention action
Also recommended:
Listening to "How to Fight Facism While Surviving a Plague" by Kelly Hayes
Finding a pen pal through SWOP or Black and Pink
Image source: Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law.
Amanda Klonsky, prison reform activist and advocate. Amanda discusses the impact of the CODVID1 virus on those who are incarcerated. It is a public health and moral crisis.
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Mairead Case is a contributor and the Thursday editor of the Quarantine Times.
Mairead Case (maireadcase.com) is a writer, teacher, and editor in Denver and Chicago. She publishes widely, and wrote the novels TINY and SEE YOU IN THE MORNING (featherproof, 2020 and 2015), the poetry chapbook TENDERNESS (Meekling), and, with David Lasky, the forthcoming Georgetown Steam Plant Graphic Novel. Mairead holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD from the University of Denver. She teaches English: full-time to eighth graders, and part-time at the Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility. Mairead is a Legal Observer with the NLG and volunteers for a community response team supporting queer and trans survivors of violence.