From Free The Vote to Free the Folk
Darrell Wayne Kersey died September 16th, after being sick for a month with COVID-19. Kersey contracted the deadly virus while being held in the Durham County Jail. As we know, COVID-19 is a global health risk that impacts us all, but cages are incubators that put people on the inside at significantly higher risk of contracting the virus than the general population. If Kersey hadn’t been confined in a cage during a pandemic, he might not have gotten COVID-19 and had the opportunity to live.
The conditions of the jails are insufficient and inhumane. These conditions reproduce cycles of harm which devalue human life and disproportionately exploit poor people and communities of color. Incarcerated individuals are not receiving adequate sanitation or necessary care whether for pre-existing disability treatment, mental health needs, or COVID-19. We cannot afford to treat anyone as expendable.
The Durham County Jail currently holds over 300 people who are at serious risk of dying of COVID-19 because of a few hundred dollars.
Below are their accounts, unedited:
“The first two weeks I was here I didn’t receive medication or Cpap machine. I have a condition that causes me to pass out. When I asked for assistance CO’s just laughed & left me on the ground. I have a sleep disability & PTSD & some other mental conditions that I cannot receive treatment for while I’m in this facility (The medication I need they won’t provide). My hand is also broken. I have a bone poking out the side (I was supposed to have surgery for it.). I go days without sleeping because of my medical condition & I am in constant pain. I have a heart condition & when I was in 3A my chest felt like it was about to explode(I layed on the floor for 6 hours waiting for a nurse/they never came.) I couldn’t move at all so I just slept there (The Correction Officer just kept walking past like I wasn’t even there.) (They denied my Attorney Request several times in (3A). They weren’t giving me my Cpap machine so every night I was choking in my sleep. Some days the food was raw & I couldn’t eat it. So some days I wouldn’t eat. (A replacement meal was never brought to me.) (The first two weeks we are here we are on 24/7 lockdown in pods they do not clean. I had blood on my bed walls & sink that did not belong to me.) I asked a CO to clean it because I was very concerned about the biohazard. I had throw up under my mattress they wouldn’t clean. The CO came in and sprayed it and walked out (The contents were still there.” — J.M. (Time Inside: 2 months, Total Bail/Bond Amount: 1,000,000, Needed for Release: 100,000)
“It has been horrible. They switched our visitation system so now its hard to see family. They feed us crazy. And the CO’s talk to us like we are animals. We have no rights in here and we barely see our lawyers.” — A.L. (Time Inside: 10 months, Total Bail/Bond Amount: $5,000, Needed for Release: $350)
“It’s stressful, it’s messing with me mentally, physically, emotionally. Not knowing if or when you’ll ever make it home.”- S.J. (Time Inside: 5 months, Total Bail/Bond Amount: $305,000, Needed for Release: $6,000)
“Instead of letting our phone calls to family be free, to rest homes, hospitals, and home as well, they charge us making us buy the phone cards, a 10 dollar card cost 17 dollars, a 20 dollar card cost 27 dollars and if you don’t buy them, they make your family put the money on there phone service, we are here fighting covid-19, a lot of these guys have children who are sick and mothers and fathers too and how anyone can make profit off of sickness and death, don’t have a heart at all and one day should pay for their greed… Are we going to stand by and let people still die and get sick with Covid-19 here in Jail and our Prison System, There was A inmate here in my Pod-4-A who was Rushed To The hospital over A month Ago And they came here A day Ago Packed up his things here in his Room And We All Fear he is dead now, yet No one is informing us Anything About him, he left here with Covid-19.” — B.P.
This is not the time to try to make exceptions about who should live and who should die. On average 70% of the prisoners in jails, unlike prisons, have not been convicted of a crime and are sitting in cages awaiting trial because they cannot afford to pay their bail.
We envision and build a world beyond cages, beyond demonization, beyond dehumanization, devaluation, and constant, fatal abuse from those who claim to offer protection. We have seen too many times that this system is flawed to the very root. Jails do not provide what people need to live. We cannot live without our lives. If we hope for life in or after COVID-19 then we need immediate decarceration.
Sincerely,
SONG Durham
If you would like to be involved in this work to offer care, support, and resources, you can email SONG at songdurham@gmail.com to connect with one of the incarcerated people interested in having a pen-pal, or to offer art, books, and other forms nourishment for their experience.
SONG (Southerners On New Ground) is a multi-issue southern justice movement that unites us across class, age, race, ability, gender, immigration status, and sexuality fighting for collective liberation in our lifetime. As part of SONG’s regional #FreeTheVote campaign, SONG Durham embarked on our “Uncage the Vote” action last May, getting voter registration materials into the hands of incarcerated people in Durham, NC County Jail. In a year full of conversations about voter disenfranchisement — there is no more important place to look and work than in local county jails. Through this process we’ve developed friendships and correspondences with folks inside, and have received their consent to share some of their stories and experiences.
To read more accounts from our friends inside the Durham County Jail click here.
A shorter version of this article was originally published as an Op-Ed in INDY Week on 11/4/2020.
