More than 30% of the people who died in Florida prisons of COVID-19 were eligible for parole at the time of their death.
Last summer, when Marcellina Williams’ mother died of COVID-19, it was her brother in prison who frequently checked in with her — sometimes multiple times a day — to try to keep her spirits up. “He said, ‘You’re going to be OK, we’re all going to be all right,’” Williams recalled recently. “And that’s the kind of person he was.” But in September, amid a COVID-19 outbreak at Okeechobee Correctional Institution where he was incarcerated, Williams suddenly stopped hearing from her brother, Donnie White. She knew foot pain from his diabetes had sent him to the prison’s infirmary and she worried he’d catch the coronavirus. The Florida Department of Corrections had at the time reported almost 100 new cases of COVID-19 in the Okeechobee prison. When Williams finally got someone at the prison to give her information about her brother — four days after their last call — she was told he was at a local hospital. Hours later, when she called again, she was transferred to the prison’s chaplain, who said her brother had died. “I just lost it,” Williams said. “… Nobody gave us a phone call. Nobody said anything.” White, whom Williams remembers as a skilled mechanic and cook that made the best smothered pork chops, died of complications of COVID-19, the local medical examiner found — one of the more than 220 people incarcerated in Florida prisons who died of the novel coronavirus since the pandemic began, a death rate more than one-and-a-half times the general public in Florida. He was the first of six men who died of the virus at Okeechobee Correctional Institution, all within the same month, public records show, but the agency’s death toll spread across 40 different facilities for 13 months. Yet despite the most recent COVID-19 prison death occurring in mid-May and more than 60% of the prison population still not vaccinated as the threat of the delta variant grows across the state, FDC last month dropped its mask requirement and other emergency measures. “While we’ve been seeing massive improvements in COVID-19, we’re not out of this,” said Zinzi Bailey, an assistant professor at the University of Miami’s Medical School who helps run the COVID Prison Project, tracking the virus nationwide at incarceration facilities. “This is not a time to put our guards down, especially in congregate settings…. There should be assurances that folks who are going into these [prison] facilities, that they’re reasonably safe.” She said she’s not seeing that happening in Florida, especially without routine reports of COVID-19 data, which the state halted last month. FDC Secretary Mark Inch said in a recent interview that he was “proud” of his agency’s response to the pandemic, noting Florida’s prison death numbers are not out of line with other large state corrections systems. He said he monitored how many incarcerated people were hospitalized at one time — never more than 73 in a day, he said — to make sure the corrections department did not overwhelm local hospitals. Prison hospitalization data was never made public. Many families, however, said prison officials or staff failed to protect their loved ones, waiting too long to transfer people from a prison’s rudimentary infirmary to a hospital, ignoring symptoms for weeks, inadequately testing for COVID-19 while shielding the results and leaving families in the dark about their loved ones’ medical status. From March 2020 through the beginning of June 2021 — when the agency stopped reporting any COVID-19 metrics — more than 18,000 incarcerated people and 6,000 staff tested positive, according to agency data, and at least nine staff members also died of the virus. “All infectious disease protocols are in effect,” said Molly Best, a spokesperson for the FDC. “The well-being of all who live and work in an FDC institution is of the utmost importance to FDC.” Best also said vaccines remain available for anyone who decides to receive the inoculation, and that the agency continues to test anyone newly entering the prison and follow enhanced cleaning protocols. To better understand the scope of the deadly toll of COVID-19 in Florida’s massive prison system — which experts had warned would become a hotspot for the airborne virus because of its close quarters, old facilities and aging population — the Orlando Sentinel compiled autopsy reports and information from medical examiner offices across the state to learn who died of the coronavirus in state custody. The Sentinel was able to confirm 194 deaths, almost 90% of the 221 deaths reported by the state corrections and health departments, compiling the most comprehensive list of the men and women who died serving a felony sentence, including their age and race, how long and why they were in prison, their cause of death and details about their last days. Among the findings: Williams said she is still tormented by questions about how her brother, who was serving a 15-year sentence for selling drugs, spent his last hours — and if anyone cared enough to comfort him, if he felt alone.
