An infamous federal prison is causing some major concerns, and it’s happening for reasons authorities had long been warned about leading up to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Now there are deaths adding up and no one knows what’s going to happen next.
Oakdale Federal Prison in Louisiana is a low-security prison that’s holding almost 1,700 inmates. Inmates and staff have been majorly exposed to the virus, and several have already died!
Prisons and jails are a threat to public health for many reasons, but now they’ve become incubators for COVID-19. This is an especially heinous issue for the state of Louisiana.
The New York Times reports COVID-19 has “wreaked havoc on the federal prison system,” meaning the problem is much bigger than just one prison - but Oakdale is an example of what is likely to happen around the country.
Louisiana was long the top prison state in the nation, with incarceration rates that exceeded many countries. Black people felt the brunt of this prioritization of incarceration over anything else. Now, after years of spending on that, their COVID-19 infection rate is skyrocketing and that’s bad news for us too.
Black people are at risk to be disproportionately impacted by what goes wrong inside and outside of prisons like Oakdale. The resources that were spent locking people up should have been spent on healthcare, education, and other resources that strengthen our communities!