Letter to Johns Hopkins About Conditions in Delaware Prisons
Good morning and Merry Christmas!
I watched this and I would like to be connected to Dr. Chris Beyrer
I know that more people are locked up than anywhere in the world here. I live in Delaware.i would like to have up-to-date and accurate Covid-19 numbers for the incarcerated.
We have more than our share of that 25 percent of the world prison population being the 2nd smallest state but having the 2nd highest incarceration rate among the states per capita.
I work with a group called the Coalition to End Debtors Prison. It is infuriating that so many people are locked up because of Administrative misdemeanors and how little it seems that we are willing to do about this.
I would like to know if Dr. Bewyer has been working at all with our chapter of the ACLU and our Attorney General Kathy Jennings and our Governor John Carney specifically about the non-violent, aging prison population which is so large because of tuff on crime 3 strikes you’re out laws. They deserve compassionate release especially since law-makers like the President Elect and Vice President Elect have apologized for their roles in over-sentencing these people.
Commissioner Claire DeMatteis and the Delaware Department of Correction are not capable of handling this and MRSA, Hepatitis, HIV and TB. The facilities are incredibly unhygienic. They don’t have the personnel. They’ve had trouble recruiting staff since the prison uprising in Smyrna 3 years ago in which staff were taken hostage and Sgt Steven Floyd died or was killed.
I would like to learn more about the Copay for soap & whether or not Purell and other Hand Sanitizers are banned because they contain alcohol here in Delaware. When I was locked up in 2008 soap was provided for cleaning and personal care. I would like to know if I was being charged unknowingly and if I still owe.
Unconscionable.
So many people are locked away who can’t make bail who have not even been proven guilty or pay fines and fees.
I also care about the treatment of people called, “Immigrants” who I was also locked up with in 2008 who were being deported then. I was not aware that until recently they were briefly detained, given a court date and then released to their families. This administration locks them away until deportation and separates them from their families and I have also protested and spoke out against this practice.
Unhygienic and crowded facilities are the root of the problem and it’s incredibly racist. I have been organizing family members of the incarcerated and we have been protesting every Friday for 3 weeks today at Howard R. Young Correctiosl here in Wilmington.
I have heard the worst of the worst from inside. It was always bad but Covid-19 turned the fire up high on a pot of already boiling water. The large Civilian workforce including nurses and counselors isn’t large enough to provide adequate care. They are understaffed, overworked and many times are not mentally, emotionally or professionally present. An 8 hour shift can become a double or a triple easily and they’re not getting paid well and they do live in low-income areas where people are exposed needlessly to the virus in stores, on public transportation and at home where many family members and renters live on top of each other like jail..
So there are more than enough Covid-infected people coming in and out of the prisons around the state of Delaware like in Wuhan, China and in New York at Rikers where workers brought it in. My uncle is a corrections officers and so are a few of my cousins,
But they don’t have the personnel to handle this pandemic.
People must be released.
Crowded Dormitory settings (3 and 4 men to a Two-man cell) will continue to kill the prison population like it did this past weeK in Smyrna at James T. Vaughn Corrections. We are organizing people to protest around the state. Locking down which is enormously stressful and stopping family visits leads to riots and it leads to severe emotional detachment and sometimes unrepairable behavioral disorders.
The point of incarceration is supposed to be rehabilitation but it’s really to cause trauma and torture those being punished. Almost everyone locked up eventually goes home if they are not killed inside.
I’m aware of people having much different experiences in prison. I am aware of people fighting for reform and restoration. I don’t want anyone else to die inside as the result of a riot or Covid-19. I feel like the dead bodies are tied to us and infecting us if we don’t do (something) now.
WE ALL MUST KEEP UP THE GOOD FIGHT TOGETHER
To DECARCERATE AMERICA STARTING HERE- PLEASE HELP US TO DECARCERATE DELAWARE! THANK YOU!
Respectfully yours,
Community Councilman
Davon “D” marque Hall
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“And the Glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be One, just as We are One”- John 17 : 22
WE ARE ALL REMARKABLE!
