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Michigan ranks highest in nation for prisoner deaths from coronavirus

Detroit Free Press - 5/11/2020

The last time Debra Matthews spoke to her brother, a nurse held the phone to his ear as he lay in a hospital bed on a ventilator.

John Thompson, 64, had COVID-19 and had been on life support for nearly two weeks after becoming ill at Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater. Over the phone from her home in Indianapolis on May 2, Matthews encouraged her older brother to keep fighting.

"I was still hopeful," she said. "I had spoken with one of his doctors, and they were looking for the plasma antibodies for him."

Thompson died two days later. Reflecting now, Matthews realizes her brother was tired. He was tired from illness that had plagued him in recent years. Tired from 37 years in prison.

Thompson is among 49 state prisoners who have died of complications of COVID-19. The Michigan Department of Corrections has logged more coronavirus deaths than any other state prison system and ranks second nationwide behind New Jersey for prisoner deaths per capita, according to The Marshall Project, a nonprofit journalism outfit that reports on the criminal justice system and is tracking the virus in prisons across the country.

MDOC also has more deaths from COVID-19 than the federal prison system, which houses more than 172,000 people nationwide, a population that's nearly five times larger than MDOC's population of roughly 38,000.

Two MDOC staff have died from COVID-19.

As the death toll behind bars rises, families and advocates say they grapple with feelings of helplessness.

"When you have been in prison yourself and almost every single day you read about more incarcerated people dying from COVID-19, it is devastating," said Joshua Hoe, policy analyst for Safe and Just Michigan, who was formerly incarcerated. "None of these people were sentenced to die from this virus and how we choose to respond says a lot about how much worth as a society we place on incarcerated lives."

Prisoners vulnerable to illness

A prisoner at Parnall Correctional Facility near Jackson was the first to die of the virus on April 1. Just over a month later, a total of 49 prisoners have succumbed to COVID-19.

Those who have died range from 47 to 86 years old. Just over half were 65 years or older.

Eighteen deaths, or more than a third, were prisoners at Lakeland Correctional Facility. There, about 17% of prisoners are 65 and older, and many prisoners have chronic health conditions.

"The elderly are more at risk," said Dr. Marc Stern, former medical director of the Washington Department of Corrections and faculty member at the University of Washington'sSchool of Public Health. "And whereas we use 65 as the definition of elderly in the community, in prison, we should be using an age that's 10 or 15 years younger."

Experts say prisoners are more likely to suffer from infectious disease than the general public. An estimated 40% of people incarcerated in jails and prisons have at least one chronic medical condition.

A number of factors -- environmental living conditions, physical trauma, living in close quarters -- can make incarcerated individuals vulnerable to illness, said Dr. Warren Ferguson, professor and senior vice chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

The quality of food in prisons puts people at higher risk for diabetes and obesity.People who inject drugs in prison are at higher risk for infection such as HIV and hepatitis C, said Ferguson, who is also director of academic programs for the Health and Criminal Justice Program at UMass Medical School.

As of Friday morning, 2,090 state prisoners were confirmed to have the coronavirus. Results were pending for nearly 7,500 prisoners as the Department of Corrections wrapped up testing of all inmates at six prisons in the Upper Peninsula, a collaboration with the Michigan National Guard.

Michigan has tested nearly 12,000 prisoners, which far exceeds testing by any of the 38 other states that reported that data to The Marshall Project.

MDOC has the third highest number of COVID-19 cases after Ohio and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The department ranks fourth in cases per capita.

Nationwide, at least 20,119 people in prison have tested positive for the virus and 304 have died as of Wednesday, according to The Marshall Project.

Fifty Michigan prisoners were hospitalized with the virus as of Wednesday evening, said Chris Gautz, Department of Corrections spokesman.

As of Friday, 303 staff members across the state have tested positive.

In correctional facilities where there are high rates of infection, Stern says it is important to consider the quality of health care that prisoners receive.

"Generally, in the prison system, if health care delivery was inadequate prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, then there's a very good likelihood that the quality of health care is even worse now," Stern said.

"It may explain not only the infection rate but more importantly, the death rate. Because patients may have trouble getting seen for their symptoms. And when they're seen, the care that they get maybe suboptimal."

The Michigan Department of Corrections has a rate of 13 deaths per 10,000 prisoners. As of Wednesday, the New Jersey Department of Corrections had a rate of 21 deaths per 10,000 prisoners, according to data from The Marshall Project. New Jersey's prison population is about half the size of MDOC.

Statewide, Michigan ranks sixth in the nation in the number of overall COVID-19 deaths per capita, with four deaths per 10,000 residents, according to The New York Times.

Calls to release prisoners

Stern said prison systems should do "everything they can to downsize the population" in light of COVID-19 outbreaks.

The Department of Corrections says the parole board is working overtime to accelerate paroles for eligible prisoners who have reached their earliest release date.

Prisoner advocates say that's not enough. They continue to call on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to use her clemency powers to free elderly and medically vulnerable prisoners who are not likely to re-offend.

"We don't have the death sentence in Michigan," said Monica Jahner, who is formerly incarcerated and works with people returning home from prison through the Ingham County program Advocacy, Reentry, Resources, and Outreach.

Gautz pointed out that of the prisoners who have died, about half were serving life sentences for murder or other serious crimes.

"These are the kind of people that would not have been released under any sort of executive order that could possibly be envisioned," Gautz said.

Hoe of Safe and Just Michigan points to new research out of the University of Michigan that suggests prisoners over the age of 50 who were convicted of violent crimes pose a low risk of recidivism. His group wants Whitmer to use her clemency powers and expand the parole board to process more releases.

'They still are human beings'

Thompson, the man who died of COVID-19 earlier this month, was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Matthews said the 1982 killing that landed her brother in prison for first-degree murder devastated their family. It still hurts today.

The siblings grew up in a loving home in Muskegon, Matthews said. She and Thompson were adopted from separate biological families. "I think that John was broken when my parents got him," she said.

Thompson struggled as a young man, going on drinking binges that would alter his personality, Matthews said. He started borrowing money from their longtime pastor. During an episode fueled by alcohol and drugs, Thompson and another person went to the pastor's home for money. The encounter ended in the pastor's death.

In prison, Matthews said her brother repented to God, the pastor's family and the church.

"He had taken ownership of his crimes. He was not that person anymore," she said.

Matthews holds onto fond memories of her brother, recalling his big laugh that always made her laugh. He was four years older than her and a big guy -- 6 feet tall and 250 pounds before he died -- and fought her battles at school.

"He was good to me as a kid," she said.

Thompson's health had worsened in recent years. He had his knees replaced. He had diabetes, and a stroke last year left him legally blind. Matthews suspects he had pancreatic cancer.

Given her brother's underlying health conditions, Matthews thinks Lakeland Correctional Facility should have taken more preventive steps to protect him and other vulnerable prisoners from COVID-19.

"It really hurts to think that ... nobody really cares about these people," she said. "They still are human beings."

Angie Jackson covers the challenges of formerly incarcerated citizens as a corps member with Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project, with support from the Hudson-Webber Foundation. Contact Angie: ajackson@freepress.com; 313-222-1850. Follow her on Twitter: @AngieJackson23

Kristi Tanner is the computer-assisted reporting coordinator at the Free Press, where she is a member of the investigations team. Kristi is an adjunct professor at Wayne State University, where she teaches statistics. Contact Kristi: ktanner@freepress.com; 313-222-8877.

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