I Ain’t Got No Misinformation, Part Duh

As I have tried to explain in the first part of this multi-segmented post, listening to the Bureau of Prisons and their communications is like winding up in a Marx Brothers movie, but without the wit or humor. As I try to sort through The Bureau of Prisons’s misinformation about misinformation I develop a real sense of empathy for every character ever played by Margaret Dumont in those films. Constantly beset and bamboozled by the Marx Brothers, she had this memorable exchange with Chico in Duck Soup:

It’s almost hard to grasp that Chicolini has become a paradigm for bureaucrats and senators. Yet here I am, trying to express what I saw with my own eyes, while BOP press people tell us all otherwise. So, let’s look at another talking point the BOP uses to try to justify its conduct.

Alleged misinformation: “Staff who have had sustained contact with infected inmates or family are required to report to work.”

So, I’m not staff, but I did see staff who had been having sustained contact with quarantined inmates also work overtime shifts in different units and departments subsequent to that potential contact. Were they required to report? I can’t say, but I did hear lots of complains about understaffing during the crisis, and virtually every inmate request during the lockdown was rebuffed with some version of “we don’t have enough people to deal with your issues right now.” The BOP itself says, in response to this particular strawman argument, “BOP performs pre-screening of all employees reporting to work and requires exposed workers to wear a mask for 14 days after last exposure. They are also expected to perform regular self-monitoring for symptoms, practice social distancing and to disinfect and clean their work spaces. Anyone who develops signs or symptoms of illness are sent home.” So it does seem to say that you do have to show up to work, but you have to wear a mask. It laos seems to say that if you become visibly ill at work, then you get sent home. If you are being sent home from work, then you must be required to be there in the first place. I’m unclear what misinformation got corrected here.

They also call this myth/misinformation: “The Barr initiative is narrowly focused.”

The first thing to say is that “Barr initiative” is an oxymoron. Attorney General Barr never took any initiative for anything. Fighting beyond all reason to preserve the status quo is not innovation. But what they are trying to reference here is that an order came down from the Attorney General to start screening inmates to be placed on home detention in order to reduce the crowding that helps spread coronavirus through the inmate population. A few people were sent home, yes, but I also saw just as many get told that they should prepare to go home soon and then be told, “Oops, sorry, you aren’t going anywhere.” The justification was always that it turned out, on further examination, that they didn’t meet the requirements of the Barr initiative. So, I supposed that’s not narrow? I’m not the only person who thinks so, the DOJ Inspector General made this observation: “We concluded that the BOP did not
fully leverage its existing or expanded authorities under the CARES Act and the Attorney General’s
memoranda to promptly transfer . . . inmates to home confinement.” So perhaps it wasn’t the initiative itself that was narrowly focused, it’s just that the BOP is stingy beyond what they ought to be.

It’s unclear how this statement is in any way false, but the BOP lists it as one of their points to refute: “Inmates say correctional officers are ordering them to stay six feet apart, but most of them are living in
dormitory-style settings with 100 or more men. A handful of sinks, showers and toilets are shared by all.”

This is a me or your own eyes situation. I lived in a lockable warehouse that held about 70 people when the pandemic struck. We had 5 sinks, 4 showers, 3 toilets and 2 urinals when everything was actually working. We were told to stay 6 feet apart. They even went so far as to put up signs about that and to yell at you if you got too close to somebody else when you went to pick up a meal, nevermind the fact that you would then have to eat the meal within 6 feet of somebody else. The BOP response to such a simple observation is this: “Social distancing is difficult in certain correctional settings but to counter this limitation, BOP has issued cloth face masks to all inmates and common areas are sanitized multiple times a day. Their cells can be cleaned at least 1x a day.” It’s a non-denial denial, a double negative this doesn;t quite reach the triple one. Yeah, we can’t actually let you social distance, so just put on a mask and clean more. And pray.

The BOP hit parade continues: “Masks are not being provided in a majority of BOP facilities.”

They eventually did issue cloth face masks, incredibly ill-fitting ones, but at least they served to hide their shame. Face masks, however, are not the ideal solution to the problem they had created. Imagine if you had to sit on an airplane all day for a month, and couldn’t get off the airplane even though everybody knew there was an airborne virus on the plane. There’s only so much faith you can put in a mask. You could thank the airline for providing them, but your gratitude would be mighty strained. Besides, the BOP first issued one set of masks and felt it was so novel that the actually had a prison-sponsored, staff-judged competition to see who could decorate their mask the best. Then a couple weeks later they issued new masks along with a directive that said if you were caught marking or decorating your mask in any way that you would be put in solitary. Is it a game or not? It’s only funny until somebody loses a lung. Also consider this timeline: March 11: WHO says COVID is a pandemic; March 13 the BOP closes down most inmate movement on the compound and stops outside visitors from entering; March 31 the BOP decided it should make some masks; April 4 the BOP distributed those cloth masks to inmates. Yes, they got them out to people, but by the time the masks actually appeared thousands of inmates across the country had already been infected, though very few of them had been diagnosed or properly treated. COVID moved through the prison like a wildfire, and nobody reacted until they saw a lot of flame. By then, obviously, it was too late for many people.

BOP-designated misinformation: “A video shot by an unidentified Elkton prisoner alleges that he is housed with infected inmates.”

BOP response: “The inmate was in general population and he and his cellmates were not symptomatic.” Um, being symptomatic has nothing to do with being infected. The virus spread quickly and efficiently through the general population. The BOP simply didn’t test widely for it in order to confirm that; after all, confirming the spread would have hurt their own myths and misinformation. People were clearly ill in general population and the inmates knew who they were. Another case of me or your own eyes. And what the fuck does a video have to do with it? I guess the BOP subscribes to the sentiment “Pics or it didn’t happen.”

Something else to be denied by the BOP: “Staff escorting symptomatic inmates to hospitals are being told to return to work.”

If you could get time off for escorting sick inmates to hospitals, I think most Corrections Officers would jump at that chance. We also have to remember that when an inmate is in the hospital, at least one guard stays there with him the whole time (working in shifts)! So even if you don’t go physically back to prison after your transport duty, you might very well be working, let’s say, “remotely.” And wow, what a nice place to work: a COVID-filled hospital. Also note that such a complaint is not likely have to originated among inmates. After all, we pointed out from the outset that the biggest vector for disease entering a prison is the staff itself; we aren’t at liberty to mingle with the infected free world. So here is an example of the BOP also trying to discredit its own staff. No wonder the Bureau of Prisons always ranks near the very bottom of federal government job satisfaction surveys.

Another so-called myth: “Officers who work in the building where inmates have developed COVID-19 symptoms frequently walk throughout a facility.”

In the BOP’s own words: “As of Phase V of the BOP’s Action Plan response to COVID-19, the BOP has advised the National Union and implemented practices whereby staff are assigned to static posts and facilities to minimize movement and transmission.” In other words, we used to do this, but we don’t any more, we swear it. Of course staff who are exposed to the symptomatic still all enter and exit by the same entryway as their supposedly unexposed colleagues. Staff still get together outside of work, though shelter in place orders were supposed to minimize that kind of fraternization. And we see how well that works. There haven’t been any waves of infection outside prisons which have been fueled by exposed mingling with the unexposed. Of course, the BOP propaganda was written before the nationwide second and third waves of infection, so it reflects fantasy thinking that people, even then, knew was untrue. By the way, Phase V was issued on March 28, 2020, well after everybody with any sense knew there was a major problem in prisons.

BOP-designated misinformation: “Symptomatic inmates work in Food Services, packing sack lunches for the rest of the prisoners so they could be served the meals in their cells to limit contact.”

The outbreak was so widespread that, of course, some food service workers came down with COVID. In fact, one of the first people I saw get a COVID-positive test was a food service worker. They sent him “home” — that is, back into the general population — for several days before they tested and isolated him, so they didn’t technically let him pack lunches after he appeared outwardly sick, but it’s also most likely that he was working there while he was contagious. This logic is up here with, “As soon as I knew that banana was rotten, I spit it out.” Well, maybe next time check for rot before you chew. Even if you are really, really hungry.

Alleged myth: “Inmates are being moved from facility to facility, increasing the risk of spreading COVID-19 to other institutions.”

Indeed, the BOP did stop transporting inmates for a while. Then there was another problem: their holding facilities were getting backed up and infected. Any intake of new people is going to burst the “bubble,” but surely the prison system can’t stop ingesting new inmates, so it was matter of drastically reducing movement for a while and then quarantining the new arrivals for 14 days.

The BOP also pushed back against this misinformation: “Quarantine sites are being used to house COVID-19 positive inmates.”

For security reasons, I’m not privy to the overall workings of Bureau of Prisons housing schemes. All I can tell you is that I saw inmates who were suspected of having COVID-19 being put in the same cell blocks as inmates who did have COVID-19. On the other hand, the new guys they were bringing in were being placed in “regular” solitary, which was a different building that viral solitary.

And they finish with this bizarre one: “Federal Prisons Industries (“Unicor”) is taking business opportunities away from small businesses during the COVID emergency.”

This has nothing to do with COVID. This is the point of UNICOR, period. If you use prison labor that you can pay, when the worker has real seniority, $2/hour (recognizing that UNICOR worker start out at less that 50 cents an hour), and who have no benefits of any sort that an employer might pay, including some portion of federal payroll taxes, you are obviously going to take business opportunities away from small businesses who don’t have limitless access to slave labor. This is every day, pandemic or not. Though the BOP trieds to hide behind notions of prisoner rehabilitation and statutory obligation to justify the exploitation of prison labor, it doesn’t change the institutionalized facts of the matter. Now if the federal government paid inmate workers a competitive wage (see my post on Henry Ford for more on this) and benefits, then they might not have to put out their own disinformation claiming that “UNICOR is actually providing revenue to many small businesses in the community.” Dope dealers also provide revenue for people in their communities, but they don’t get a pass, do they?

OK. In the immortal words of Springfield’s Mayor Quimby, “I need a drink and a shower.” Be well out there, and don’t believe the hype.