#1347 Locked in a Petri Dish (Mass Pandemic Incarceration)
Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Jay Tomlinson
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 April 2020
⏱️ 114 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Air Date 4/12/2020
Today we take a look at the way mass incarceration is coming back to bite the US as jails, prisons and immigrant detention centers are becoming Petri dishes for the coronavirus that will help perpetuate the pandemic as well as non-virus related deaths throughout the population.
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SHOW NOTES
Ch. 1: Prisons and Jails Are a Coronavirus Time Bomb - Deep Background with Noah Feldman - Air Date 3-24-20
Homer Venters, the former Chief Medical Officer for the NYC Jail system, says that we need to stop the spread of coronavirus in prisons, jails, and detention centers.
Alarm is growing about the safety of more than 37,000 people held in immigrant detention centers and private jails that contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, where it is nearly impossible to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Ch. 3: Coronavirus Behind Bars: Crisis In New York Part 1 - News Beat - Air Date 4-8-20
Rikers Island now has more than 200 coronavirus cases and recorded its first COVID-19-related death last weekend. Advocates warn that anyone held in the jail is in mortal danger.
Ch. 4: COVID-19 and the border - The Weeds - Air Date 4-7-20
Dara, Jane, and Matt on the intersection between the pandemic and Trump's border crackdown.
These community bail funds are freeing people by paying bail and bond and are also fighting to abolish the money bail system and pretrial detention.
Ch. 6: No Hierarchy of Humanity Part 1 - Off-Kilter - Air Date 3-20-20
Tom Jawetz and Emily Galvin-Almanza on the steps leaders need to take to reach the nation’s 5,000 prisons, jails, and immigrant detention facilities.
Ch. 7: Dispatches from People Stranded in Place - The United States of Anxiety - Air Date 4-3-20
WNYC Investigative Reporter Matt Katz brings us calls from inside immigration detention centers.
Ch. 8: The Emergency in Our Jails - Social Distance - Air Date 4-8-20
Everyone is being ordered to social distance. Except those who are being ordered into places where that’s impossible. Jim and Katherine talk with Conor Friedersdorf about what can be done.
Ch. 9: No Hierarchy of Humanity Part 2 - Off-Kilter - Air Date 3-20-20
Tom Jawetz and Emily Galvin-Almanza on the steps leaders need to take to reach the nation’s 5,000 prisons, jails, and immigrant detention facilities.
Advocates say marginalized communities are going to suffer the worst from the consequences of a broken economy, neglect, and a decaying social safety net.
VOICEMAILS
Ch. 11: Reverse seasonal affective disorder - Arkle
Ch. 12: This too shall pass - Annie from Florida
FINAL COMMENTS
Ch. 13: Final comments on hidden Negative Visualization and the elephant in the room
Limerick of the day from @Libericks
TAKE ACTION
Donate to The National Bail Fund Network's COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund
Find other ways to help and get involved through the hashtag #FreeThemAll
EDUCATE YOURSELF
Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020 (Prison Policy Initiative)
Detaining the Poor (Prison Policy Initiative)
Rikers Reports Its First COVID-Related Prisoner Death (NY Mag: Intelligencer)
Andrew Cuomo Has Learned Nothing From the Coronavirus Catastrophe at Rikers (NY Mag: Intelligencer)
Fear Among Immigrant Detainees Spreads As Coronavirus Outbreaks Hit ICE Detention Centers (Buzzfeed News)
Immigrant detainees in Massachusetts are fighting to be released in the pandemic (Vox)
'Terrified of dying': Immigrants beg to be released from immigration detention as coronavirus spreads (USA Today)
Researched & Written by BOTL Communications Director Amanda Hoffman
MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions):
- Opening Theme: Loving Acoustic Instrumental by John Douglas Orr
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- Derailed - The Depot
- When We Set Out - Arc and Crecent
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- Gusty Hollow - Migration
- Voicemail Music: Low Key Lost Feeling Electro by Alex Stinnent
- Closing Music: Upbeat Laid Back Indie Rock by Alex Stinnent
SHOW IMAGE:
"Prison is No Place for a Pandemic" by: Micah Bazant (@micahbazant), Artist in Residence @fwdtogether
Produced by Jay! Tomlinson
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to this episode of the award winning Best of Left Podcast in which we shall learn |
| 0:07.3 | about the ways mass incarceration is coming back to bite the US, as jails, prisons, and |
| 0:12.4 | immigration detention centers are becoming petri dishes for the coronavirus that will help |
| 0:17.0 | perpetuate the pandemic as well as non-virus-related deaths throughout the population. |
| 0:22.8 | Now a quick mental and emotional check-in as non-traditional times call for non-traditional |
| 0:27.9 | podcasts. It's just me today and my check-in is quick. My check-in is that I'm foggy. |
| 0:35.3 | We're going to be talking about this more at length next week, I think, but boy am I foggy. |
| 0:42.0 | I was going to give a couple of examples of how the work that I do, 95% or more of what I do is not |
| 0:53.2 | talking to a microphone, right? And it's all kind of like little fiddly bits of, you know, |
| 0:59.9 | tasks and switching between them and the whole process of doing anything feels like going for a |
| 1:08.5 | jog through molasses. It's just agonizing to try to remember, okay, what was I going to do next? |
| 1:15.7 | Okay, that's what I was going to do. How do I do that again? Okay, right, that's how I do that. |
| 1:20.4 | I was going to give an example or two, but it turns out I just gave myself another one. That little |
| 1:25.6 | intro, that single sentence intro, you just heard me read, it took me like five tries to get through |
| 1:32.4 | that without fumbling and stumbling all over myself because I just can't get my brain to connect |
| 1:41.4 | to my mouth very well. So that's how things were doing, but as I said, we'll be talking more about |
| 1:47.4 | that in depth next week. Now, on to the show, clips today come from deep background, democracy now, |
| 1:54.6 | newsbeat, the weeds, off-kilter, the United States of anxiety and social distance. |
| 2:07.6 | A lot of us have a visual image of what it's actually like inside a jail or a prison, |
| 2:12.8 | only from television and in fact, mostly from fictional television. Would you explain a little |
| 2:18.2 | bit to us about how conditions, for example, in a big city jail like Rikers are especially conducive |
| 2:24.6 | to the transmission of infectious disease? Yeah, I think that there are some features of jails |
... |
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