Epidemiologists and bioethicists in many countries have recommended including prisoners in the top priority list for covid vaccinations. USA, the country with the highest per capita prisoners, (in total 2.3 million behind bars) had initially placed the incarcerated among the earlier vaccinees. In March 2020, the state of Colorado abolished the death sentence. Nathan Dunlap was one of three prisoners on death row whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment as a result. In 1993, the 19-year-old Dunlap was fired by the restaurant where he worked. Frustrated, he had taken revenge by shooting and killing four employees.
An op-ed in a Denver newspaper criticized giving vaccines
in shortage to prisoners before giving them to honest citizens. The author of
the op-ed rebuked the plan to inoculate Nathan Dunlap ahead of his own law-abiding
78-year-old father. This was followed by an infuriated backlash on social media
supporting this argument.
Colorado governor Jared Polis, a generally liberal
man, an openly gay governor, announced at a press briefing there was “no way
the limited supply of shots would go to prisoners before it goes to people who
haven’t committed any crime”.
Prisoners have now disappeared from the priority lists
of many American states. Countries in the EU, UK and India haven’t given much
attention to prisoners. Prima facie, it seems a fair and sensible argument that
free people must receive vaccines before incarcerated people.
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Inmates live in extremely crowded conditions, sharing bathrooms
and eating facilities. Social distancing is out of the question. Their access
to protective gear is unheard of. Prisoners have high rates of hypertension, heart
conditions and other comorbidities. In the USA, they are disproportionately Black
and Hispanics, the vulnerable groups.
14 out of Colorado’s 15 largest outbreaks occurred in
prisons or jails. Nationally, in the USA, more than 40 out of 50 cluster
outbreaks began in prisons. The viral spread doesn’t stay in the prison walls. Contrary
to what people think, an average sentence in the USA is just seven months. Jails
hold many suspects for very short periods of time, sometimes only for a few
hours before sending them back. The prison staff, often from the minority
communities, goes home. They can carry the virus to their families and neighbours.
Visitors and those released can act as transmission agents.
It is important to note there are 500,000 people in
American jails awaiting trial, who are presumed innocent until convicted. In
Texas jail, 80% of those who died of covid-19 were never convicted of a crime. Another
44,000 are in juvenile facilities and 42,000 in immigration detention centers.
Guarding them are the 400,000 correction officers. One
plan is to vaccinate only the prison staff (because they are not criminals).
That doesn’t solve the issue of jails and prisons becoming the Covid-19 hotspots.
So far in the USA, the covid case rate is four times higher in prisons than in
general population, and the death percentage double inside than outside.
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Prisoners are already punished by deprivation of
freedom. One health-care director described prisons as essentially long-term
care facilities with bars. Morally speaking, it is debatable whether the state
has a right to impose on prisoners additional punishment by exposing them to
the virus or denying them vaccine protection.
Even if moralistic arguments are kept aside, data
shows that prisons are some of the worst super-spreading places in any country.
Immunizing incarcerated people is a practical necessity. Vaccinating those inside
can make the lives of those outside safer.
Ravi
Your last paragraph says it all
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