Incarceration during COVID-19 Can Be a Death Sentence: A Christian Response
On Sunday, April 5, Michael Tyson was the first detainee at Rikers Island to die from COVID-19. Tyson was held at Rikers for a technical parole violation (a low-level offense) and the Legal Aid Society had been fighting for his immediate release along with 99 other detainees from the Bronx. Because of COVID-19, a short-term detainment turned into a death sentence.
Tyson’s death follows weeks of activists, lawyers and politicians calling for the release of people from jails and prisons across the country, and particularly in New York City. As crowded institutions with insufficient medical facilities, jails and prisons are hotbed for infectious disease. Meanwhile, earlier this month it was reported that the governor was paying prisoners an average of 62 cents per hour to make hand sanitizer — that they weren’t allowed to use. More recently it was reported that the city is offering people at Rikers $6 per hour to dig mass graves.
Clearly, some people see incarcerated people as deserving life, health, and dignity, while others see them as cheap disposable labor for the most unpleasant tasks our current moment demands.
The crisis within the jails is yet another way that COVID-19 reveals the white supremacy embedded in our institutions. In New York and cities across the country, Black and Latinx people are dying from COVID-19 at a disproportionately high rate. Black and Latinx people are also incarcerated at exorbitantly high rates. This crisis reveals, once again, the Black lives don’t matter to our government.
As Christians and other people of faith, what is our responsibility to incarcerated people? Most Christians will be familiar with Psalm 146, that says “God sets the prisoners free,” and Isaiah’s repeated insistence that God will “free captives from prison.” Most often, we are told this is metaphorical: God is freeing us from sin! We are freed from our prison of flesh! We are captives to our own desires! (Ironically, this interpretation is often put forth by biblical literalists.) And yet, the bible tells us that God really led people to freedom. Jesus, who claims to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah, quite literally heals people from illness, feeds the masses, and washes the feet of his disciples. If God’s power was merely metaphorical, and not material, there would be little point to the incarnation at all.
For Christians, Jesus matters because he came to live among us, and lived and suffered in the physical world. In the physical world of today, the United States keeps millions of people in prisons, jails, and detention centers. These are people worthy of health and respect as much as anyone else. In fact, as biblical prophets single out prisoners for freedom, they demand our preferential option, as liberation theology challenges us to embrace a preferential option for the poor.
COVID-19 is forcing the public to face the ugly realities that have long upheld our social institutions. Our healthcare system is inadequate and broken, we lack a sufficient safety net for workers, and prisons are inherently violent institutions designed to contain and punish vulnerable people. Data shows that decreasing arrests and releasing people from jail doesn’t cause more crime. Seeing this, the crisis is an opportunity to explore our values only as Christians, people of faith, or anyone who is dedicated to supporting human life.
Recently, Union seminary teamed up with ACLU to release a statement and advertisements that call for the release of elderly and medically-vulnerable people from jails and prisons. This is a great start, but does not nearly address the moral crisis that we’re facing. Our next step is to join activists and lawyers to ensure that every person in pretrial detention is released from their sentences. As people of faith and values, we must speak to the right moral decision, even if it is difficult or politically unpopular. Nobody deserves to be locked in a cell during a pandemic.
If prison abolition is new to you here is a very good introduction to the concept. To take action now to demand people be released from prisons and jails in NYC, visit the website forFree Them All and get connected to Close the Camps NYC.
Jesse Ortiz is a MDiv/MSW student at Union Theological Seminary and the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College.