On the New Mexico Department of Corrections (NMCD) website, a COVID-19 tab links to a resource and information page. This page, updated daily, provides statistics on active cases, infections, recoveries, and deaths. It also includes a list of health orders, reports from the centers, plans, and informational COVID-19 links. When we opened these documents, we found a one-page report on a single case and several vague incidents. Looking deeper into COVID testing protocol and procedure, vaccination plans, PPE requirements, and safety measures took us nowhere.
The lack of transparency coupled with conflicting reports from inmates about inadequate testing and PPE, and a rise in cases and deaths, leads us to believe that the NMCD is obscuring the truth in their reporting on the management of their facilities. Currently, there are several lawsuits over the inhumane treatment of prisoners in detention centers at the New Mexico Supreme Court and 20 active cases against the NMCD itself for gross and reckless medical neglect of inmates (Collins & Collins, 2021). It is problematic that New Mexico's governor is using NMCD’s reporting as the official representation of COVID-19 cases and virus management in New Mexico prisons.
Are we to believe NMCD is enabling the spread of the virus in prisons with the backing of the New Mexico state government?
Societally, we track data on things about which we care. Do hidden infection and death rates indicate that incarcerated people are not valued and cared for as members of society? In this blog, we argue that the pandemic highlights the atrocities within the U.S. prison system and exposes prisons’ more profound, systemic issues. The prison systems’ violence does not benefit communities. We call for an end to the inhumane treatment of our imprisoned relatives and an end to mass incarceration and the prison system as we know it!
