Demonstrators urge release of LIC prison inmates nearing end of sentences
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Demonstrators outside the Queensboro Correctional Facility. Photo courtesy of Center for Community Alternatives
By David Brand
Inside the open dormitories of a six-story state prison in Long Island City, inmates serve the final few months of their sentences amid the looming threat of the coronavirus.
Already, at least six inmates at the minimum security Queensboro Correctional Facility have tested positive for COVID-19, advocates say. The exact total is hard to confirm — the state will not share the number of inmates who test positive in specific prisons.
With a stroke of a pen, justice reform advocates say, Gov. Andrew Cuomo could commute the sentences for 184 inmates inside and stem the spread of the coronavirus in the close confines of the prison. A few people gathered outside the prison on 47th Avenue and Van Dam Street Tuesday holding signs and making speeches that urged Cuomo to do just that.
“I woke up this morning thinking about what horror and trauma must be happening inside the New York State prison system,” said Mark Shervington, a formerly incarcerated man from Queens who now works with the Release Aging People in Prison, or RAPP, Campaign. “They’re sitting there practically waiting to die.”
The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision reports that 618 staff members, 150 inmates and 24 parolees have tested positive for the illness as of April 14. An untold number of people behind bars have symptoms of the illness but have not been tested. Cuomo’s office did not respond to an email seeking comment for this story.
The coronavirus has spread rapidly through jails and prisons throughout the state. Hundreds of Rikers Island inmates and staff members have confirmed cases of COVID-19, for example. At least 16 inmates at a privately run detention facility in Springfield Gardens have tested positive for the illness, and the number keeps growing.
Social distancing is all but impossible at the Queensboro Correctional Facility, said rally organizer Katie Schaffer, the director of organizing and advocacy at the Center for Community Alternatives.
The lay out of the minimum security facility “is even more potentially deadly” than jails and prisons where detainees are isolated in cells, Schaffer said.
After speeches from other advocates appearing via Zoom, demonstrators standing alongside Schaffer and Shervington concluded the rally with a chant. "Governor Cuomo: Let Them Go,” they shouted.
