There's an outbreak of COVID in Prince William County Jail. Attempts to stop the spread don't seem to be working, and conditions are becoming more and more inhumane. If you want to know what the inside of one jail looks like right now, here.

I should preface this by saying I'm reflecting my own experience as an attorney bearing witness to this—my twitter commentary isn't a statement on behalf of my office. But the stuff actually contained in this article is from my office/colleagues. https://www.princewilliamtimes.com/news/public-defenders-raise-concerns-about-jail-conditions-as-covid-19-spreads/article_1495e882-67dc-11eb-b06e-8326198555ed.html

Every day, public defenders talk with clients who tell us what is going on inside the jail. Then we go to court, try to move people to care, & hear from people who don't bother to set foot inside that things really aren't that bad. But they are.

We know for sure that over 30 people have active cases of COVID. We don't know how many people are actually sick inside of the jail, because we have no idea how much testing is being done or what the testing criteria is. We don’t know if people without symptoms are being tested.

Units are being locked down. Human beings are being individually locked down. Many people inside are essentially in solitary, which is you know, widely considered to be torturous.

I want to highlight and break this down specifically, because it’s been one of the most haunting things for me to hear from clients. People inside are saying that they have gone a week or more without showers. People report not being given clean underwear and other hygiene items.

The reasonable explanation for the shower issue might be that it is logistically more difficult to get people showers when every person has to be isolated. This does actually make some sense.

But if the state cannot offer everyone person in their custody the opportunity to get clean more than once a week, IN THE MIDDLE OF A GLOBAL HEALTH CRISIS, they have no business having people in their custody.

What I truly cannot even conceive of an explanation for is why a pandemic would reasonably make it more difficult to get people clean underwear and other basic hygiene items. This doesn’t seem like a pandemic issue to me.

None of this is to mention the impact that the isolation has on people. There is so, so, so much isolation.

I want to highlight something else our Chief points out here—these conditions have a mental and emotional impact on our clients. I have been saying for weeks now that if someone doesn’t die of COVID, someone will die by suicide. I hope I am not right, but it keeps me up at night.

There are SO MANY elderly people and people at heightened risk in our jail. I’ll point out that I’ve witnessed our “progressive” Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office ask that someone be held without bond with the FULL KNOWLEDGE that the person they wanted held had HIV.

This week, I almost cried with relief hearing that some of our clients were getting the vaccination, only to walk into court and hear the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office immediately turn that around as a reason that the court should take the outbreak less seriously.

Let’s think through that. There were 100 vaccines given. There are nearly 600 people in our jail. Some of the vaccinated folks will eventually be released, and many more unvaccinated folks will come in over the coming weeks. So less than a sixth of people have the vaccine.

And I’m not sure why the CA’s office wouldn’t comment on this except that they don’t want people to know, but it was definitely absolutely the first dose. So after this week, a grand total of zero people incarcerated in our jail are actually fully vaccinated from COVID.

Anyway, as for the other 500 vaccines, we have no idea when they’re coming. Rollout in Virginia has been pretty bad, and I have heard that our jail received vaccines later than at least one neighboring county. So I am not counting on any time soon.

This is the response any time someone tries to bring any of this up in court. I would point out that maybe the jail is not the most reliable reporter here, for reasons.

@iniquitousme here pointing out what should be obvious to anyone who thinks about this, except that people refuse to stop and think about this: it is impossible to follow CDC guidance and basic social distancing protocols in a jail.

And it's a public health problem for the WHOLE COMMUNITY. Jail is not a bubble.

A point that I could stress every day until I die and never have stressed enough: Every single person in jail or prison has someone outside who cares about them. Every single person has a context. We are harming not just them, but their loved ones and community.

I should probably find a more diplomatic way to say this, but it’s been a really long few weeks of trying to convince people to care about humans trapped in COVID-ridden cages, so I’ll just say it: This is not true.

Over the past two weeks, I have argued against the Commonwealth’s requests that people be held without bond on property offenses, drug possession, etc.
I have never gotten the sense that the were looking for release "wherever possible."

In my experience, a VERY significant portion of what the Commonwealth is asking people to be held on is not violent or sexual in nature.

Beyond that, everyone the Commonwealth is asking to be held without bond are people that have not been convicted of crimes. And the Commonwealth is asking that people be held pretrial for an indefinite period of time, because we have no idea when we will have jury trials back.

Not to mention that asking anyone to be held right now is asking for what could turn out to be a death sentence.

I have had clients' families ask me if things are okay in there, and I'm at a loss for what to say. But I have to be honest. Things are not okay. The jail is not okay. Our clients are not okay.

I am proud to be a part of an office that is standing up and saying something about it, but as defense attorneys, we are very often the actors in the system with the most limited power to get people out.

It is up to the commonwealth’s attorney and the judges to see our clients’ humanity and the dire risk they are facing. But I am very scared at this point that they won't.