“People Just Went Crazy”: How One Prison Dealt With Coronavirus

Art by Tanzanian Wojak

My homie Arthur,* 26, just got out of prison. The Lorain Correctional Institute in Grafton, Ohio. He did time from March 4th to June 29, finishing up the probationary period of an earlier bid of two years. Right when the first wave of coronavirus and the George Floyd protests blasted the nation.

I was interested in what happened. Lorain Correctional Institute has a reputation for overcrowding—in one study, it stood at 135% capacity—and I assume coronavirus made things way worse. I called him up. This is what he said.

*Name changed to protect identity.

Hey Arthur, thanks for speaking to Countere. When did you go into prison?

March 4th, right before coronavirus. I went to Lorain Correctional Institute (LCI). When you begin your time, you go to one of two reception centers in Ohio. The top half of Ohio goes to Lorain and the bottom half goes to Correctional Reception Center (CRC). After that, you ride out to one of the 27 prisons we have in Ohio. 

There’s five levels of prison. Lorain is level three. It’s higher security. At level three, there’s controlled movement. You can’t walk around as you wish. You don’t really come out of your cell.

Did you know about coronavirus before you went in?

I had seen newspapers. It was starting to affect society and the economy, but it didn’t really hit home. 

Then it was my first weekend in prison. They got everybody’s attention and made a big announcement. They said “Hey, we got word from the governor. We’re not going to be doing any more visits and we’re going to have more changes…your family’s not able to see you anymore.”

So that was the first clue. Like, realizing this shit is no joke. A couple weeks go by, they start implementing new changes. You’re no longer allowed to get a hair cut, you have to keep six feet apart. Just little changes. But we all knew it was only a matter of time.

They brought in like 50 S.R.T.s. S.R.T.s are ‘security response team.’ So we knew something was going on. They made an announcement with the S.R.T.s there, because they knew that we were going to wild out. 

They announced that Lorain had its first case. It was actually a C.O. And that’s a Code Red. We were Code Orange, now we’re Code Red.

 So everybody starts flipping out, right? Everybody starts flipping out.

[How to Defend Yourself in a Riot]

Did they lock the whole place down?

Yeah. After that, we’re locked in our cell 23 hours a day. We’re not allowed to go to the cafeteria. Now they bring your meals to you. We're not allowed to leave our dorm. They’re shutting everything down, acting all crazy.

They started giving us masks. Mask after mask after mask. Everybody’s scared or frightened because they know it’s only a matter of time.

Slowly but surely, three C.O.s caught it. Four inmates caught it. Next week, 11 C.O.s caught it. 12 inmates. And it started getting worse and worse. 

They just didn’t know what to do. When someone got corona, they tested them, but they didn't have the space or resources to care for them medically. So they made you stay in your cell, for 24 hours a day.  They put a paper with a big black ‘Q’ [for quarantine] on your door. They let you out to shower every other night. 

For most people, you ride out to your next prison from Lorain. So we don’t have TVs in our cells, nothing good, unless you’re one of the prisoners that's permanently classed to Lorain. Everyone was waiting to go to a minimum security prison where it's nicer. 

Well, they were not doing any ride outs to other prisons. They didn’t want to infect other prisons or cause liability issues. So tensions were high. People wanted to leave. They were tired of being in that cell. Tired of not seeing their family. Knowing that it’s only a matter of time before they catch corona. 

Cases started popping up in our dorm. It was just one person, then it was like dominoes. We had 150 people in each dorm. Probably a good 30 infected. It was like two or three people that died overall. Older gentlemen.

I ended up catching it, too, but I didn't say nothing. I didn’t want to get locked down 24/7…I’m already locked down 23 hours a day. I didn’t want to get thrown in the hole. So there was a lot of people that ended up catching corona that never said a word. 

How did people react to the situation?

There was a lot of people that rebelled and just went crazy. There was actually a C.O. that spit on someone. Someone joked around with her and told her “You look like corona,” because she was ugly. She said “Here’s your corona” and spit at him.  

It was a big fucking deal. They had to move about 10 people. 

Were people able to do drugs?

There wasn’t really a whole lot of drugs coming in. Because because they shut the visitation down. A lot of the drugs were coming through visitation. But a lot of people were still smoking ‘toon’ or spice—you would call it K2.

So coronavirus is happening, and then George Floyd is killed in late May. How did the prison react to that? 

They didn't want us to hear about it. They shut the TVs off for a week. They thought we were going to riot.

You would think it would cause an uproar in the prison system. Prison has the most racist people. Because of the differences in culture between black and white. But it didn’t really affect people—like black against white people. It wasn’t really about that. If anything, it made tensions higher between the COs and inmates. 

Nobody had a chance to riot though. Because they’re behind a cell door 23 house a day. They were more talking about the corona. Because coronavirus was stopping them from getting out to the next step—riding out to the next prison. 

[Photos of the Aftermath of the Manhattan Riots]

How did people hear about the news? On their phones?

No, no. People don't sneak cell phones into Lorain because they don’t have enough time to really put no big plays down. Most people are there only three, four months. 

I would read the USA Today. My mom bought me a subscription. There’s some people that stay out all day long that help people clean and they would watch the news and tell people what’s going on. But mostly you would hear what’s going on when you get on the phone and talk to your people, your family. 

How did you cope with the time?

It messes with your mental health, being locked down 23 hours a day. [laughs, sounds troubled] It’s rough. Luckily, I was short on time, and that kept me going—I only had a couple months. 

All you get to do is… daydream. You can listen to a little radio. Stare out the window. Read books. But it goes by slow, you know what I mean? There’s nothing really to do.

For sure. It sounds like coronavirus made it way worse.

It was just weird being in prison at that time. You’re used to the administration taking control and knowing what's going on. But they’d never, ever done anything like this before, they said. They told us “We never had to do a quarantine. We never had to stop ride outs. We never been on Code Red.” So it was all new to everybody.

People are really going through it right now. Not leaving, locked down. They’re saying there’s not going to be any ride outs for months. It’s hard, man, it’s hard. Imagine living in your own bathroom for three or four months.

And they don’t give you enough medical attention or resources to really combat anything. They don’t give you Purell or fucking sanitation. It’s kind of like, “Let him die in a cell.” You’re on your own, for the most part.