Valley Interfaith Project and Arizona Interfaith Network leaders have been in conversations with the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (ADCRR) and Arizona Department of Health Services (DHS) since the Spring, urging them to protect prison staff, inmates, and their families during the COVID-19 crisis.
Excerpts from Arizona Daily Star, 8/31/2020:
A late-July spike in Pima County COVID-19 cases shown on the Arizona Department of Health COVID-19 webpage... [on] July 30 shows 642 cases, the highest number of cases by far that month.
On July 2, Barbara Hudson died in the San Carlos Unit in Perryville Women’s Prison in Goodyear. Before her death, she sought medical care for shortness of breath and chest pain, said Kim Crecca, convenor of the Diocesan Prison Ministry, who has volunteered at Perryville and communicates often with prisoners.
Crecca is part of the Arizona Interfaith Network, a group of faith-based leaders across the state that organizes people for social and economic improvement.
“We feel that her death is a rallying cry, not only to help with the release of inmates as possible but also about the underlying conditions there that make them really vulnerable to the virus,” Crecca said.
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Prison staff has been required to wear cloth face coverings since June 15 and inmates were provided with face masks on July 2, Lamoreaux said. |
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“I’m grateful to them for changing that policy and that practice, but I think the implementation of it still leaves a lot to be desired in terms of actually keeping people safe,” said Rev. Jennifer A. Reddall, bishop of the Episcopal diocese. |
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“I can choose to keep away from people, I can choose to wear a mask, I can choose to stay home, I can choose to keep myself and my family safe,” Reddall said. “Inmates do not have that ability. They do not get to choose to keep themselves safe, and so it’s up to all of us to make sure that policies keep them safe and make sure that those policies are enforced.”
The faith groups started meeting with Department of Corrections Director David Shinn in April and less often with Dr. Cara Christ, Arizona Department of Health Services director, to discuss what the state could do to better protect inmates from the virus.
Those discussions led to the department implementing the testing blitz, and allowing inmates to wear masks.
Father Hunter Ruffin, the pastor at Church of the Epiphany in Tempe, said that with the department nearing the end of testing all inmates, the group is waiting to hear how the state will monitor further exposure.
They are also asking Schinn to release people 90 days before their release date.
Arizona law does not allow people to be released to house arrest if they’re high risk for contracting COVID-19 because of their age. But that could be changed through legislative action.
The group will also continue to ask the state to provide a high level of health care for inmates, Ruffin said.
“We find it deplorable that somebody would die in prison because they were not able to get access to appropriate medical care,” he said.
“No one who is incarcerated should have a death sentence by virus, but particularly those who are incarcerated for low-level offenses,” Reddall said. “They should not be put in a place where they’re going to die because of some infraction.”
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Read the entire article in the Arizona Daily Star, “Tucson Prison Inmates Say Close Conditions, Slow Test Results Spread COVID-19: Arizona Faith-Based Group Asks Department Of Corrections To Mitigate Virus Spread.” by Stephanie Casanova, 8/31/2020