MARYLAND

PRISON"
ABOLITION

.,

PROJECT

liolence,Hunger,
and
Premature
Death:

0

Covid-19
in
Maryland
Prisons

0

Prisons
didnotprovide
adequate
access
to
personal
protective
equipment
for incarcerated
folks.Individuals
alsospoketo howsome
correctional
staffconsistently
didnotwear
masks
or gloves
whenpreparing
anddelivering
food.

confinement

Theonlymedical
treatmentsomeprisons
madeavailable
to folksexhibiting
Covid-19
symptoms
wasTylenol-andeventhat was
oftentimes
withheld.

As a response to Covid-19, prisons throughout Maryland went on
indefinite lockdown-confining
incarcerated individuals in their
cells or housing units for at least 23 hours a day for months on
end. Under lockdown, correctional officers in many prisons
initially took over all components of food service-including
meal
preparation, delivery, and cleanup-that
incarcerated dietary staff
would normally be paid cents per hour to perform. Lockdown had
drastic impacts on all aspects of the carceral food system. Folks
we spoke with described:

7he food wasn't really nothing to start off with. Then when the
Covid hit... the [incarcerated
folks] are the ones who cook the
food for the population.
So, when the Covid hit, and they locked
the jails down, there's nobody going to work. So now, it's like
the staff is cooking the food, and you know they're not putting
no heart into the food or whatever, so now it's terrible. It's even
worse than what it was at first... They've got a rule, after three
days, you're supposed to get a hot meal. They disregarded all
that and just giving you bologna and cheese, cold bologna, cold
cheese. I mean, it takes hours to melt, to defrost out, so you can
eat it. And God knows how long they had it stored before this
came up, so it just got, I mean, to the point where you had to go
to commissary and spend money in order to maintain your
weight because you couldn't eat it."

- Brian, formerly incarcerated in multiple federal and Maryland
state-run prisons during Covid-19

Food
Quality
The quality of food in every institution where folks we
spoke with were incarcerated decreased significantly
since the beginning of the pandemic. Folks described
how:
Mealsconsisted
primarilyof cheap
andnutritionally
emptystarches
designed
to fill people
up-even
moresothanpriorto the
pandemic.
Fooditemsin bagsor trayssloshed
togetherduringdelivery,
resultingin
soggyandunpalatable
meals.AsJackie
putit: "Theywerejust lockingpeople
in a
cage,feedingthemslop."

"Being
lockedupfor asmanyyearsasI
had,youbeginto notexpectmuchout
of DOC.
Especially
whenit comes
to
food.[DuringCovid]
wedidn'tgetno
hotmeals,noneof themealswashot,
everymealyougotwascold.Even
thoughtheyweresupposed
to hehot.
Yougota lot of starch-evenoutside
of Covid
yougota lot of starch-hut
duringCovid
yougotmoreandmore
starch."

- Alonzo,
formerlyincarcerated
at
JCI

The portions of food on a meal tray were diminished even
further during Covid-19. Nearly every person we spoke with
described how meals were "not enough to feed a
child" -leaving folks in a constant state of hunger. Eating
insufficient and nutritionally bankrupt meals for months or
years during the pandemic also gravely impacted people's
mental health. Some individuals developed depression and
anxiety, while others used food to mentally disassociate from
the inhumane conditions of confinement.

"They
don'ttreat youright in there.Theguards,theydon'tcare
aboutyou.Sofar,I seenduringtheCovid,
fivepeopledied... One
personthatdiedin there,theygothimoutof hiscellin two
days.Hewasdeadin hiscellfor twodays.Then
anolderperson,
hediedona chair.Hejust fell outbecause
of COVID.
It was
crazy."- Wayne,
formerlyincarcerated
at RCI

"OhmyGod.I wasgettingdepressed.
Mysleepwasmessed
up
because
I wassleeping
somuchbecause
therewasnothing
elseto do...Andthenit got to thepointwhereyoucouldonly
dosomuchsleeping
andsoyou'reup.It's veryhard.I got
verydepressed
andmyanxietywasup.It's just veryhardfor
me."- Chris,formerlyincarcerated
at MCI-J

•

0

Covid-19
Ii
~ImpactsonHealth

Folks described:

-

.

11

0

Right now, I'm in bad shape. I got osteoarthritis,
and
they're telling me now that I might have to have a hip replacement. And on top of that, I've got ulcerative colitis,
which is also a major illness. And I also have asthma and
high blood pressure. And thenl I got anxiety and depression ... I wouldn't wish this on nobody. Can you imagine,
when you have to use the bathroom, when that feeling
hits your stomach that tells you you have to go to use the
bathroom, you actually got like 10 seconds to get to a
toilet and get your pants down. You can't control your
bowels, you can't hold your bowels. And you go to the
bathroom at least 15 to 20 times a day, it not more.
So imagine how I make it to the bathroom in 10 seconds
in this jail. It doesn't happen. Oh my god, my mental
health is just gone. For two weeks, [Wicomico County
Corrections Center] took my cane and didn't give me
nothing to assist me for walking. And I, literally, had to
hang on to stuff around the walls, and to lean on the
tables tor support myself to even go get my trays and my
medication.
The last tour days of those two weeks, I
literally crawled on the floor. I had to drag myself, my
bottom halt, with my arms because I couldn't put no
weight on my hips and my legs. And they did nothing."

- Mr. Dennis Williams, currently incarcerated
at the Wicomico County Corrections Center

Commissary services in Maryland state- run prisons are managed by
Keefe Group, a multibillion dollar corporation owned by private equity
firm H.I.G Capital. 87% of all currently and formerly incarcerated folks
we spoke with relied heavily on buying foods from the prison
commissary in order to survive during the pandemic. In fact, folks
consumed 73% of their daily calories on average from commissary
foods as opposed to institutional meals.
At the beginning of the pandemic, some Maryland prisons shut down
commissary services entirely for one to three months. In prisons where
commissary remained open, incarcerated folks were unable to
work-and thus unable to receive the minimal wages paid to them for
their labor-reducing
folks' ability to purchase food items. Many people
went hungry as a result-especially
given folks' dependency on
commissary to compensate for inadequate and unpalatable institutional
meals. Other changes to commissary included:

incarcerated

"I lost so much weight. Until you start getting
commissary, you're not living. You're a ghost, basically ...
commissary prices went up [during the pandemic].
So
now the people that's sending you money, or money that
you got on the outside, now you've got to pay more while
you 're locked up. Because they know that the food is
shitty, and you need us, so we're going to raise them
prices up so we get extra money."

- Mr. Chambers, formerly incarcerated
Detention Center

•

at Jennifer

Road

Resistance,
Care,
&-Retribution

0

0
Prison staff also weaponize food service and punish certain
individuals or the entire incarcerated population in the face of
resistance. Forms of retribution include:

#There's four units in Dorsey Run. My building was the first that had
an outbreak [of Covid-191, so the prison was trying to spread people
out, and send people that was exposed to a different housing unit.
All them guys bucked. They would not let you come in that jail, so
[the prison] ended up sending a lot of them guys outside the jail as
retaliation ... The people that didn't have any outbreaks would not let
you come in there. The ones that protested, they sent them out the
jail. Like you're going from a pre-release camp to a maximum
security prison.
They send you far away ... Like Dorsey Run's in Jessup. They'll send
you to Cumberland, or they'd send you to [Eastern Correctional
Institution], across the bridge ... They moved [incarcerated people]
for protesting. There was eight to 12 of them. And Dorsey Run is
pre-release. They send you ... until your time is up. Then when you'd
get a ticket, it's going to add more time to your date. They added
more time, and made you finish the rest of the sentence at
supermax.n
- Reggie, describing prisons' response
Dorsey Run Correctional Facility

to Covid-19 protests

at

MARYLAND

PRISON"
ABOLITION_,
PROJECT

The Maryland Food & Prison Abolition Project connects
urban and small-scale farms to prisons to use food as a
tool for resistance.
foodandabolition.org
l!Bim'.lft
info@foodandabolition.org
llB~Ul}.Dm @foodandabolition
uo.n;;i......-.

~

..........