Inside the State’s Prisons

Felmers O. Chaney Correctional Center. Photo from the Department of Corrections.

The Department of Corrections announced Friday it would test all inmates and staff at the Felmers O. Chaney Correctional Center, with a population of 86 inmates, and the Marshall E. Sherrer Correctional Center, which houses 43 incarcerated people. Both facilities are in Milwaukee.

When those additional 129 folks are tested, the state will have tested just 1.3 percent of state prison inmates. Thus far, the DOC has tested about 0.7 percent of the 22,136 imprisoned people. 

Six of seven people previously tested at the Chaney site tested positive for the coronavirus; all four inmates tested at the Sherrer Center tested positive, according to DOC information.

The testimonials below are from inmates at different state prisons. They were edited for length and clarity.

​Well, since Tuesday 5/5/2020 I am now in COVID isolation; yet, ironically, housing us in about the most heavily trafficked area in the [north] cell hall: the showers (and we are not allowed to shower for at least 2 weeks).

It appears that everyone that attended library on Monday afternoon 5/4/2020 is down here with me, less a few that were taken to the hole for the something they said (trivial comments). The irony here is that I was allowed to move about and came into contact with a number of prisoners and staff within the almost 24-hour span between Mon. and Tue.’s quarantine, none of whom are down here. Some staff and inmates were not even wearing masks or PPE.

The isolation cell they put me in was filthy, containing the leftover “mattress,” or the old uncovered, no-stuffing, ripped, urea-smelling sack of plastic the last COVID patient laid upon.  In fact, one of these guys has already been down here for quarantine before(!) and back again.  Then, having lost my single-cell, I will be coerced into moving back into a double-cell which they know I will refuse for medical & safety concerns, and will proceed to be thrown in the hole, incidentally forfeiting my recent approval for a medium.

So, allow me to intrigue you with this premise: Guards and inmates alike are free to wear masks/PPE at their discretion, yet even though I don masks/PPE and observe proper protocol, I am put in isolation and deprived law library/court access….

Keep in mind they aren’t actually testing us, only screening and monitoring, and they are simply going to throw possible asymptomatic carriers right back into the population and law library, over and over again. And what about staff, some of whom invariably associate with these “Liberate Wisconsin” protests?

***

I have just over nine months left. They have the COVID cases on one unit at this point. It seems to me that it is staying on that one unit, thank God. But we have guards who work in that unit that then go to another unit later that week. They don’t seem to realize that it’s that carelessness that spreads this disease. We have maybe one or two guards who actually follow the mask ideas and they seem to be getting power hungry now that they have to keep us from being in contact with each other.

***

As of today’s date, we have no cases of COVID-19 here. This institution takes the rules of social distancing very seriously. Starting on March 26 we were placed on a modified lockdown. Then a week later we started a full-blown rule change for everything… Starting with day-room time. Where as we used to get almost 13 hours out every day, we now see only 4.1 hours because our day room is broken into 3 groups of out time..(group 1, 2, and 3). Each group consists of anywhere from 30-40 inmates and the times are 1.5 hours for two of the periods and a final 50 minute period to finish off the night.

Inmates are only allowed to sit two to a table, maintain six feet apart, we eat in our cells, we lost the gym for rec, weight room, and library, because it’s too close quarters. But we still have the walking track where we are allowed to walk, jog or run every other day, but only with our group, and no more than 40.