Reaching through phones
A mother's fight to protect her son in youth detention in the face of a pandemic
Being a mother involved in the justice system can mean many things. For many mother’s in L.A. County, it means fighting for their sons held in detention during a pandemic.
Cynthia knows what COVID-19 does to people. As a certified nurse’s assistant at a Los Angeles county hospital, she sees it firsthand. That makes her even more afraid for her 16-year-old son with asthma, a condition that makes him more vulnerable to the virus, who is held in juvenile hall awaiting the next steps of his trial.
“As a parent, I fear for him. I fear for his life, for his well-being, for his health,” she said. She asked that her son not be identified by name to protect his privacy as a minor. The Appeal is only using her first name to protect her son’s identity.
Cynthia said he hasn’t received his medication since his arrest in early January on charges including grand theft auto, for which he has yet to enter a plea. She said the facility called her mid-April to ask what medication he needed. His public defender declined to comment on his case, citing privacy issues.
Cynthia’s son is one of almost 550 youth still incarcerated in the county who face longer periods of incarceration due to court delays, at a time when jails and prisons are emerging as particularly dangerous sites for transmission of COVID-19.
“The challenge with correctional settings, including juvenile detention centers, is basically, they are like a cruise boat, but more dangerous,” Elizabeth Barnert, an assistant professor of pediatrics at UCLA and a pediatrician in one of the juvenile halls, said.
Cynthia’s son misses his 4-year-old sister the most out of his three younger siblings. He loved taking his little sister out to the park to show her how to play basketball and going on walks with her, she said. He looks up to Kobe Bryant, and, before he was detained, he played basketball as a standout defender on a year-round team.
“Him being there is not for him. And he’s never been in a situation like this,” Cynthia said. She said he wants to go back to school, then to college and basketball, and eventually own a construction company.
“It makes me feel hopeless because I can’t do nothing about it. All I can do is just try to call and get in contact with somebody because he’s inside there, and I’m out here,” Cynthia said.
Read the full article here at The Appeal.
Context: Keeping youth in solitary confinement is a human rights violation, but many facilities are doing this to prevent the spread of COVID-19. [The Marshall Project]
Update: The lawsuit filed in the supreme court demanding more releases was denied. [Chronicle of Social Change]
BUTTTTT: The governor of California is calling for an end to the youth prison system, but this would keep youth detained, just at a county level. [Chronicle of Social Change]
Chicago too: Appeals for youth releases are being blocked by a judge in Illinois too. [Injustice Watch]
Mother’s To Be: Moms in Alabama support each other through pregnancy and then goodbyes to their newborns. [The Marshall Project]
News
Not accountable: Questions still rise about why federal prisons didn’t report COVID-19 cases in privately run facilities. [The Marshall Project]
Go to work: Alabama corrections officer exposed to COVID-19 was forced to work before inmate tested positive. [AL Reporter]
Prison town: A Texas prison town now faces fears over COVID-19 cases in their prisons. [The Marshall Project]
Highest rate: New Jersey prisons have the highest COVID-19 death rate in the nation. [NJ]
Down South: Riots are hitting South American prisons where some facilities house 500 percent more inmates than they were designed for. [France 24]
Listen: to this overview to hear how COVID-19 is affecting people inside. [WBUR]
Opinion: Who is to blame for Andrea Circle Bear’s death, the mother who gave birth on a ventilator and died this past month. [New York Times]
Breathe: Yoga offers relief for women in prison during isolating COVID-19 procedures. [NHPR]
Flashback: This January, a mother was forced to give birth while shackled was freed. [The Detroit Free Press]
Educate yourself: This study found few states have announced efforts to reduce juvenile inmate populations, and most drops in population are due to reduction in intakes. [Youth First Initiative]
Long Read: An executioner turned abolitionist lost to COVID-19. [The Intercept]
In some states, executions take place away from death row, carried out by staffers who do not know the person they are about to kill. This is meant to make it easier on prison employees. But Givens pushed back. It didn’t make a difference who did it. “Killing is killing.” “People think you can do something like that and then go home and forget about it,” he went on. “No. It’s something that is stuck with you.”
COVID-19 resources: State Policy Changes. News. Bureau of Prisons updates. State court changes.
We want to hear from you about how COVID-19 is impacting you and the people connected to you. What is not being talked about? What story do you have that needs to be heard? Who do you want answers or explanations from? Please reach out to lj@dawsons.us.
The Des drops into your inbox weekly with a collection of small and digestible snippets concerning the criminal justice system. It promises to be humanizing, spunky, and educational. Our name: The Des is short for Desmoterion or “place of chains”, used to describe prisons in ancient Athens. We like the idea of the chains because incarceration expands far beyond bars, connecting all of parts of this country. We are here to cover it all.