December 21, 2020

We received some good news over the weekend. As part of its deliberations to pass the Covid-19 Relief Bill and pass a Budget, Congress lifted its ban on Pell Grants for incarcerated people. In the 1994 crime bill, Congress banned incarcerated people from applying for Pell Grants to pursue college education while in prison. This ban effectively ended the possibility of pursuing educational opportunities post high-school for most incarcerated people. Some colleges and universities introduced some college courses in selected prisons in their geographical area. For instance, Georgetown University, under the direction of Prof Marc Morje Howard, teaches a course at a Maryland State Prison in Jessup. 15 Georgetown students join 15 incarcerated men for a semester long course. Goucher College has a program at the Women's Prison in Jessup. These programs are not comprehensive and cannot reach most prisons because they are so many and because they are often in isolated regions.  You can read more about this in Politico by clicking here. 

The State of Maryland announced that incarcerated people and prison staff will have priority in being vaccinated against Covid-19. The online newspaper, Maryland Matters reported that former Health secretary Robert R. Neall, who retired on Dec. 1, listed “People in Prisons, Jails, Detention Centers and Staff” among six priority groups to receive the vaccine in Maryland’s Phase 1 distribution, according to a draft plan submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Oct. 16. The estimated population of the inmate and staff subgroup is 54,460. The Health Department did not provide an inmate-staff breakdown of the subgroup when requested. Click here to read the whole article.  

While Maryland has taken steps to limit the spread of Covid-19 in its state prisons and has announced that incarcerated people and staff would have priority in being vaccinated, Virginia has not done well in limiting the spread of Covid-19. According to a report in the Marshall Project, 1 in 5 incarcerated people have been infected with Covid-19 in Virginia Prisons. The State of Virginia has not stated that incarcerated people and staff will have priority in being vaccinated against Covid-19.  

We need more public pressure on Governor Northam to arrest the spread of Covid in Virginia prisons and to make staff and incarcerated people a priority in receiving the vaccine.