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The above photo is not from Rikers Island, but rather from Lakeview Shock Correctional Facility.
This blog sources from the article I Work at Rikers Island and Have Urgent Questions About My Health, written by DrewBreez, in Medium, 3/25/2020.
There’s an eye-opening interview piece in Medium about a Rikers Island cook. He’s still going to work every day because he’s “essential personnel.” His commute is about two hours each way on public transportation, and the whole thing feels a little bit like the miners that had to dig down to the reactor at Chernobyl. As I complain about how bored I am, and how I’m losing shoulder mass without a proper weight rack, and how fed up I am with my parents after only two days, it’s a humbling reality check to remember that a lot of people are still going to work every day in the heart of the storm.
There are currently 52 confirmed cases among the inmates at Rikers, but everyone knows that means the number is probably a lot higher. This cook serves food for, and interacts with, these inmates every single day. He’s not behind some bulletproof, sneeze-proof plexiglass dishing out mashed potatoes either:
Inmates do the cleaning. They clean up the floor where we are. Sometimes, they get pans for us. They clean the tables. They ask us for sugar packets, milk, and fruit. You’re interacting with them.
The likelihood of these correctional facility employees getting infected seems pretty high. And there doesn’t seem to be a clear system in place for if that happens:
The first rumor I’ve heard about this is that if it comes to a point where more inmates get sick (or staff members get sick), they’re going to open the closed facilities and place some of the inmates there, or they’re going to shut the whole island down. People would be quarantined on the island. That rumor was in the air.
Can you imagine going to work every day at a prison, believing that if you were to come down with the virus, you might be forced to quarantine AT THE PRISON? And yet you continue to go to work every day? That’s straight up heroic, I don’t care how you slice it.
Even if we get stuck on the island, remember that we’ve got family at home. If we get stuck, where are we gonna sleep? They only have places where outsiders can come look for inmates during visits. Are we going to set up chairs people can sleep on? Or cardboard? I’ve seen it happen before: During a snowstorm, people set cardboard in the locker room.
Sleeping on cardboard in the locker room. My girlfriend and I are splitting a queen right now because we’re sleeping in my childhood bedroom, and I was so tired of the downgrade from our king bed that I threw a single mattress on the ground next to the bed and slept on that last night. As I closed my eyes, I thought Lord, let this end swiftly.
But it could be a lot worse. Thanks to all the essential personnel who to continue to soldier forth in the face of all this. I really hope we recognize these people.