Covid Operations: Rebecca “Maria” Adams, Juanita Haynes, and Bree Eberbaugh asked for compassionate release. It never came.

February 20, 2022 by 14 Comments

Alderson Federal Prison Camp is the oldest federal women’s prison in the United States. Founded in 1927, Alderson was meant to serve as a model of “reform”. Ten years ago, it became famous, or infamous, for housing Martha Stewart for a while. At that time, it was reputed to be one of the best prisons for women in the country. And what did that model of the best look like? “Overcrowded, understaffed, and short on funds … It now follows a punitive rather than a rehabilitative model …  There’s intimidation, humiliation, and sexual harassment … a symbol of all that’s wrong with how the criminal justice system deals with women.” Ten years or so later, what’s Alderson? “Covid-19 rips through West Virginia women’s prison as federal agency takes heat”. This is the story of compassion in the covid carceral. The is the story of Rebecca “Maria” Adams, Juanita Haynes, and Bree Eberbaugh, three women who very reasonably asked for compassionate release. It never came, and, within one week in January, they died. There is no “heat” that can bring them back or bring justice for them or their loved ones.

Rebecca “Maria” Adams, Juanita Haynes, and Bree Eberbaugh’s collective list of preexisting medical conditions included Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure, obesity, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Any one of those should have qualified. Adams was denied. Eberbaugh was denied. Juanita Haynes was “granted release”, when she was already intubated. She died four days later. Because she died in hospital, a `free woman’, her death is not counted as a prison fatality by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Alderson Federal Prison Camp is indeed a model, as is FCI Waseca, another low-security federal prison for women that functions as a death trap.

In March 2020, Bree Eberbaugh applied for compassionate release. In August, she was denied. The judge said the cases were too few to warrant compassionate release. As of February 8, Alderson, with fewer than 700 `residents’, reported 50 cases. Many assume the numbers of both cases, and, given what happened to Juanita Haynes, deaths is considerably higher. Eberbaugh appealed that decision. In April 2021, the appeal was denied. Nine months later, Bree Eberbaugh died.

This is the text of the handwritten letter Bree Eberbaugh wrote to the judge after the first denial:

“Dear Your Honor:

I am writing to request your assistance to obtain an attorney through the federal public defender’s office to assist me with pursuing compassionate release or home confinement based on my three underlying medical conditions that place me at a much higher risk of contracting the COVID-19 virus and suffering irreparable medical damage or loss of life.

COVID-19 has been confirmed in 114 of the 122 facilities in the BOP, yet the BOP is opening the facilities up to accept transfers from other institutions. Your Honor, it is only a matter of time before it reaches here and I am in fear of my life.

Please grant my legal counsel to properly represent my concerns and convey all that is happening that requires your assistance.

Thank you for your consideration and I anxiously await your reply.

Respectfully submitted,
Bree Eberbaugh”

Incarcerated people in federal and state prisons are twice as likely to die of Covid as the general population. The situation in jails is presumed to be worse, but there’s no data as of yet. When the pandemic is over, will we recall Rebecca “Maria” Adams, Juanita Haynes, and Bree Eberbaugh, three women who asked for compassionate release that never came? Will we remember compassion itself?

 

(Photo Credit: Kaiser Health News / LJ Dawson)

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FCI Waseca did not fail to assure the safety of incarcerated women; it refused to do so

December 12, 2021 by 17 Comments

This week, Utah’s Legislative Auditor General submitted a performance of health care in Utah’s state prisons. The Auditor found “systemic deficiencies”: “The lack of follow-up and patient monitoring is a systemic concern that extends beyond the Covid pandemic.” Reading this report, it’s a wonder that anyone survives Utah’s prisons. In fact, they don’t. According to a report earlier this year, “people in Utah’s prisons were five times more likely to die of COVID-19 than the average Utahn.” While five times more likely is high, it’s not much higher than prisons across the United States, boasting four times the infection rate of the country’s general population. And then there’s FCI Waseca, a low-security Federal prison for women, located in Waseca, Minnesota. FCI Waseca houses 756 women, of whom, according to the latest number from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 132 are currently infected with Covid. That’s the most of any Federal prison. The next in line is a Federal prison in Pollock, Louisiana, with 30 incarcerated people infected. FCI Pollock houses 1,556 incarcerated people. Less than 2% of FCI Pollock is infected with Covid; 17% of those in Waseca are Covid-infected.  Waseca accounts for 47% of all infected incarcerated people in the U.S. Federal prison system. These numbers provide the profile for “low security”.

At 199 Covid infections per 100,000, Waseca County has the highest rate of Covid infection of any county in the United States. Minnesota state prisons house 7,323 incarcerated people. Of that population, 95 are currently Covid infected, far less than 1%, although one prison, MCF Lino Lakes, 70 of its 911 incarcerated residents are Covid infected, a little under 8%.

Since the start of the pandemic, around 450 incarcerated women have tested positive for Covid. On Wednesday, December 8, the ACLU sued both FCI Waseca’s warden and the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Federal Prisons, claiming that the prison failed to take measures to contain Covid. FCI Waseca failed to release women with medical conditions to home confinement and failed to reduce the prison population sufficient for any kind of social distancing. That was no failure, that was refusal.

FCI Waseca is organized as dormitories with bunk beds kept close together. Everything is done in fairly tight common, social spaces. None of that was changed in any way in response to Covid. In August, a group of around 40 women was transferred from a facility in Oklahoma, a facility which was reporting Covid infections. The women from Oklahoma were placed in bunk beds in a unit with other bunk bedded women right next to them. Within weeks, most of the women in that unit tested positive for Covid.

What is there to say? FCI Waseca refused to address Covid, refused to respect women’s Constitutional rights to safety, refused to imagine an alternative to packing them in until it’s time to go. “Low security” should not be a death sentence nor should it mean being endangered. In fact, nothing should be a death sentence, but there we are. Two years into a pandemic, and we continue to cling desperately to the charnel house as the only way. If nothing else, by this point, perhaps people will stop saying, “The prison failed” to do this or that. There was no failure, there was only refusal, in broad daylight for all to see and without any remorse whatsoever.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Kayla Salisbury / The Marshall Project)

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