Herd Immunity

"'Criminal justice' was a term she found more apt than it was meant to be." - Barbara Neely

Texas has murdered more than 200 people in the last 6 months.  But maybe “murdered”, is too strong.  What do you call it when preventable death occurs due to apathy, or perhaps deliberate indifference?  What word applies when someone knows that leaving their step-child in a hot car can kill them, but leaves them in there anyway?  Prisoners share the same vulnerability as small children because we depend on our guardians for survival.  If they refuse to feed me, I starve.  If they refuse me medicine, I suffer.  If they leave me helplessly exposed to a deadly virus, I … maybe “murder” isn’t too strong after all, and I bet many loved ones of those 200+ deceased victims probably agree.

Would any of those people have died if they were free rather than trapped in a concrete incubator?  Maybe, but at least they would’ve had a sporting chance:  mask-up, social distance, and possibly even self-quarantine… all of which their guardians made impossible.  Like the step-child locked in a hot car, they were helpless and, no one heard their cries - well, someone heard but they’re inmates not children, so who cares?

I understand you can’t release every prisoner, that the majority of them must be exposed to COVID-19, though a number of American prisons did release some non-violent and low risk inmates to save them.  Not Texas, of course, or any of her sister former slave states.  Bible-belt politicians can’t risk being perceived as too liberal or merciful to people in prison.  Actually, the statistics argue that Texas enjoys killing inmates.  They’ve executed more people (legally and illegally) by far than any other state in history.  There have even been years when Texas more than doubled the executions of all the rest of the states combined.  Given this behavior, it should be no surprise that Texas has murdered more prisoners via COVID-19 than every other state, including the much larger Federal Prison system.

But forget Texas for a moment, when it comes to the value of human life, American prisoners are in last place.  Honestly, primates in scientific experiments have more enforceable rights for humane confinement than American prisoners do and most people will agree that their pet dog has more value than the most lovely incarcerated person.  Yet I do hope that there are still some intelligent and humane people left in this country that don’t buy into labels, stigmas and prejudice propagated by politicians and corporate media.  Not all of the 2.4 million souls being grinded by the cogs of the world’s most bloated criminal justice system are bad people, or even guilty.  Prisoners are simply people, no better or worse than the average people in a church congregation, neither the sum total of their kindest or most selfish act.  Marginalize inmates as you will, but they’re just like you and everybody else, they want to be loved and avoid suffering.  If you think about it, you never really have enough information to judge anybody, and countless prisoners are incarcerated merely because they couldn’t afford justice or didn’t know the right people.  Yes, there are some sociopaths and numbed consciences in prison, but no more percentage-wise than the average Walmart (and considerably less than the average political convention).  Yet, even the hyperbolic number of mentally ill inmates don’t deserve deliberate exposure to COVID-19, in a civilized society.  

I read about some of the Texas prisoners killed with COVID-19, and it surprised me how many had almost completed their sentences.  A 48-year old woman from Houston had served 4 years out of a 5-year sentence.  That’s a pretty lenient sentence in a Bible-belt state.  Unless of course, it turns into a death sentence.  Another victim had served 8 years of an 8-year sentence:  don’t ask me about the math, it’s what TDCJ reported on their website.  Perhaps he was only hours away from having his life saved.

At the peak of the first Corona wave, Texas had more than 18,000 people who had already been granted parole, but remained caged pending technical issues.  Only Texas knows how many of those parolees were murdered or suffered permanent afflictions from COVID-19, and Texas isn’t telling.  They chose to trap thousands of helpless people in a hot car whom they had already determined should be released.

At first, it appeared Texas would just ignore the pandemic, but pressure from inmate families and advocacy groups forced the prison system to at least go through the motions of prevention.  They locked us down, issued us with face masks made from prison uniforms, started spraying floors and walls and other rarely touched surfaces with bleach.  But it’s been pretty well established that COVID-19 is largely spread through tiny spit droplets floating in the air.  The less ventilation, the longer they do their aerial dance.  Put a large group of people in the same area and you magically have a mass infection.  You won’t find many places on planet Earth that cram more people into a relatively small space than prison, especially the poorly ventilated human warehouses that Texas calls penitentiaries.  

Nothing they did mattered, and honestly, even if Texas prisons were run by conscientious humanitarians, it’s doubtful they could’ve done anything to prevent the wildfire spread of COVID-19.  Without ventilation and social distancing, how could less than 100% of Texas inmates (approximately 125,000 in 100 prisons) fail to be exposed to the virus?  I think we were, certainly on this prison unit of about 2,000 people, which led the great state of Texas in Corona Virus fatalities. 

Ironically, with dark exception to the murder victims and those who will suffer long-term effects that scientists continue to uncover, our guardians’ apathy may be our salvation.  As of this writing, the second wave of COVID-19 is packing hospitals in record numbers.  Yet, despite little ventilation and general disregard for mask wearing (by both guards and inmates), we haven’t had another outbreak.  The state’s reckless indifference for our lives apparently resulted in our incidental “vaccination”.  We seem to have achieved the much vaunted herd immunity.  Just a theory.

Maybe “murder” is too strong of a word.  Does anyone call it murder when scientists kill animals to test a theory?