Currently viewing the tag: "Covid-19"

Published June 21, 2021 in The Baffler, read the full excerpt at, The Unwinnable War on Disease.

In my book New Pandemics, Old Politics, I tell the history of the modern world in four pandemics. It […]

Continue Reading

Drawing on her personal story, social justice leader Cassandra Bensahih discusses why solitary — in all of its forms — needs to be ended, and addresses the profound crisis of COVID in MA prisons.

Continue Reading

In this interview, Borden explains her journey from being incarcerated to becoming a community leader. She argues that gaining self-understanding by processing her own trauma was key to transforming her life–and to her the decision to dedicate herself to helping others.

Continue Reading

COVID-19 and the policies designed to counter it in American prisons pose distinct medical, emotional, psychological, and economic threats for incarcerated women and their families. Drawing on analysis of 138 women’s state and federal prisons across the United States, coupled with review of research on women’s prisons, and detailed profiles of the hardest hit facilities with insights from the women incarcerated inside them, this paper provides unique insight on the impacts of COVID-19 behind bars.

Continue Reading

UPDATE Sept. 8, 2020 at 12:00 p.m.: DOC contacted me directly to provide additional details on cause of death related to those who died in April 2020. The below essay was updated to reflect this additional information.

Writing on September 1 on this blog, I presented previously unreleased data from the Massachusetts Department of […]

Continue Reading

See update published on September 8, 2020.

In April 2020, more people died while incarcerated by the Massachusetts Department of Correction (MADOC) than in any month over the past five years. On average, between 2015 and July 2020, 3.1 people died per month in MADOC prisons. Before this year, the highest number of deaths […]

Continue Reading