He continues, "You got to understand something: They gave us shots and medical attention [in early to mid-February] for free because if you charge me four dollars and I don't have four dollars, and my lawyer gets involved, then the lawyers get involved. They don't want people to know if I'm down here sick, I got a hundred and something temperature, they won't take me up to the hospital, or [if they do] they're going to try to charge people out, so the prison says, 'Let's be smart about this.'"
X says that in the period in which knew for sure that medical attention was free (which he told me before ADOC announced that it was), "as many as 50 brothers went up to the hospital and got that free medicine, and the shots, and they had to get fluids. I've never heard of people getting fluid for a flu shot."
Sick inmates, says X, "were dehydrated, couldn't eat, couldn't drink. Their bodies were just stumped."
X feels that prisoners who have been sick from February on "could put a lot of pressure on the prison because the prison really dropped the ball on this one. I don't think that medicine they was giving them was really helping. If they don't have the medicine out there, how you think they're going to have it in the prison?"
Despite frequent warnings to the public to practice "social distancing," in Holman, at least some inmates have been allowed by administrators to "socialize more" since Alabama announced it would be closing the prisons a couple of days earlier. The day after the State made the announcements regarding the prisons, inmates were given extra social time, played "eight games of volleyball" and 11 games another day soon after.
While educating and informing prisoners about precautions they could take to prevent themselves from getting sick and spreading illness to others was one of the first (at the time one of the only) measures the State planned to take to prevent Coronavirus from spreading in prisons, X says that even by our interviews in mid and late March, some inmates in Holman still "don't know" anything about coronavirus, never heard the word. He himself heard the word coronavirus for the first time only a week into March, he says.
"The nurses don't even know about it, the doctor don't know about it, the officers don't know. So how would we know?" X insists that no process exists for educating and informing inmates in Holman.
I answer a call from an unknown number around March 24th. An automated voice says I have a call from prison. I accept. The voice runs muffled advertisements until the inmate from Ventress Correctional Facility comes on the line. I will refer to this person in Ventress as "Z " in this and follow-up stories.
We are introducing ourselves when the phone-line cuts out after less than a minute. He calls back a moment later and says he thought he was supposed to be allowed one 15-minute phone call this week for free and was hoping to use it to call me, but that the line cut because it was being charged like every other call and he hadn't expected to pay for it.
He has not gotten a free fifteen-minute phone call since the state announced that prisoners would be allowed free weekly 15-minute calls. As of this writing in early April, he still says he hasn't received a free call, knows other inmates who have and some who also haven't in Ventress, and is not aware of a process in place to inform inmates as to how to use and access the free calls, or when they will be allowed the free calls.
Indeed, in general, none of the sources I reach out to -- inmates, State officials, administrators, legal experts, health experts, or any other others -- are able to explain any process in place by which inmates in Ventress, Holman, or Alabama detention facilities more broadly were being informed of any rule changes or other measures and precautions taking place in their prisons any time all the way through end of March. In early April, some insufficient details --inconsistent with what inmates are telling me and other outlets about how Alabama prisons are handling the situation -- are reported, but they do not answer most of my questions and those of my inmate-sources.
In Ventress Prison, on the day of our first interview in mid to late March, inmates do not believe the facility has been hit by the virus yet, but "Everybody's paranoid about coronavirus getting in here," says Z. "As far as me personally, I been waiting on Governor Ivey to come up with a release plan for nonviolent felons and people who's got short time that's gonna go home anyway. But (short pause) as far as my understanding, they ain't trying to let anybody go. I don't know why they'd keep us in prison what with the coronavirus and all that, especially nonviolent felons locked up for little petty crimes or whatever."
Asked if the prison is providing inmates with information about coronavirus or precautions inmates can take to protect themselves and others, Z answers, "Nah. They don't. The only thing you can learn about that is watching the news." "Are you encouraged to do that?" I ask. "No. They don't say nothing about none of that, for real. It's just inmates that watch the news and have conversations amongst themselves."
Asked if he was able to stay six feet away from people, "No," he said, and repeated, "No. That's why I'm trying to hurry up and get home. They locked me up illegally. They been holding back, keep pushing my court date back. Now I'm stuck in here with this pandemic goin on, prison's overcrowded, and I'm just one person, man. sh*t. Man." (Pause, heavy sigh)
As is the case in Holman, Z says inmates in Ventress get "one roll of toilet paper a week for [each] inmate. You lose your roll or somebody steal it -- I don't know -- you either got to buy a roll or somebody's got some extra rolls. Even if they give you that roll, if it don't last you till the end of the week you still got to come up with some extra tissue," and it's always been that way.
Z also says in this first, late March interview that there is "no hand sanitizer" in the prison to his knowledge. Some paid employees at Ventress have gloves, according to Z, but inmates don't. Asked how many medical staff work in the prison, Z says normally five to 10, but currently "They're all off because of coronavirus goin on. They're off [work]. They're all off."
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