AX 00:03

Hello, my name is Alex Mark, and I am a volunteer with the UCLA Law COVID-19 Behind Bars Data Project. I want to start by explaining how we plan to use this conversation we are about to have. Our conversation is not legally privileged, and we will not keep what you say confidential. We plan to make transcripts and recordings of our interviews available for use by future researchers and the general public, and portions may be used online or discussed in posts on our website or other published writing. I want our conversation to flow freely, and I realize that you may discuss a sensitive topic or mention a piece of information that you later realize you would like withheld. If you request it now, at the end of the interview, or later on after further reflection, we're happy for you to review the transcript of our conversation before we make it public and to redact any portions you deem necessary from the transcript and the recording. So without further ado, please introduce yourself.

AM 00:56

So I am Alexandria Morgan Kurtz, I am the managing attorney in the Pittsburgh office of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project.

AX 01:05

Perfect. So, I want to start with how you feel your work, uh, changed during the pandemic, um, on a personal level if you feel comfortable getting into that, but also on a professional advocacy level. And also ways that it didn't change at all, maybe.

AM 01:28

Yeah, I think somehow during COVID, the work changed completely, and at the same point stayed exactly the same. Um, in that, you know, I really always enjoy talking to law students, and people looking at careers about what to expect from being, um, an advocate, an advocate in the area of prisoners' civil rights. And I've always said to interns, like this is one of the hardest fields out there and it's always an uphill climb, and you always feel like you're fighting every single battle for the most basic things. And so that really hasn't changed, it's just that COVID brought a lot of that into even more stark perspective, as at times, it felt there were things that seemed really obvious, you know, constitutional violations, you know, just violations of morality and humanity, and no, a lot of people didn't seem to care. And so it really brought that into, you know, what we kind of always knew it brought it into stark, um, just reality of it really could be that bad. But at the same point, there was a lot of things that changed, um, in that in some ways, like how we approach the work has obviously changed in that, you know, pre-COVID I spent, so we are a statewide legal aid organization that represents incarcerated people, incarcerated and detained people in civil rights claims only, we can't do criminal work. And because we're statewide and Pennsylvania is a relatively big state, I spent a lot of my time on the road. And we have 23 state prisons, um 50 some odd counties, plus 10 or so federal prisons, plus the immigration detention center, so I was on the road quite a bit. And that obviously changed during COVID. Like, I haven't actually been inside a prison or jail and met with my clients since January or February 2020. I was recently in a local jail, but that was for a document review things I still haven't actually done in person with one of my clients yet, so that's starting to reopen. So that was a huge change. It's just not traveling for that. Um… but… and like the working all hours of day and night and trying to come up with creative strategies is both different and the same because I feel like that's constantly what we're doing in the realm of prisoner civil rights is trying to find reimagined ways to get around the PLRA, to get around awful decisions from the Supreme Court or awful decisions from court of appeals that really restrict the rights our clients have. I feel like that's a constant part of our work. At the same time, COVID was just, it just changed it all, and it just made it all both, you know, more pressing and harder, and just all of it. ((AM laughs)) So change to say the same, I guess.

AX 04:01

So you mentioned you, you said people didn't care about the violations constitutionally and morally and humanely. Do you feel like constitutional violations or moral violations usually get more attention in these types of cases?

AM 04:22

((AM sighs)) I don't know if there's a, uh, black and white answer to that. And I think that there are plenty of times where, um, we'd be able to, there's plenty of issues where we can talk to the community and the public and the judges and have that human heart to heart where it really, like, sinks in the awfulness that someone's going through. Like even while we're litigating a case about transgender health care or about someone going blind because they've been denied some kind of medical care, um, even when we're litigating the actual case, we'd have these conversations with the judges and the public about what's going on and people would understand that and really sympathize with that. Whereas when it came to COVID, there was a lot of times, especially with the courts, where it was, well, they're doing the best they can. And we’re sitting there going no, you're absolutely positively not doing the best they can where. You know, six months in, we all know, you need hand sanitizer and masks and social distancing, you're not doing any of that. And in fact, like one of our local jails, shut down pods and housing units and condensed people, like, it was like, they're not doing the best they can, they're making things worse. And that message during COVID wasn't getting through. Um, it was just one of those moments where it was like the constitutional violations and moral things like seem so obvious to us as advocates, and it was really hitting this roadblock, especially with the courts. With the public, I will say there was, you know, an amazing, you know, the public definitely rose to the occasion in a lot of ways when it came to COVID. A lot of, a lot of the releases we've seen nationwide and in Pennsylvania came not from our litigation efforts, and possibly and not from, you know, some of our organization's efforts on advocacy, but just from the public talking about, and the community members talking about how awful it was and pushing. And you know so different jails did work on decarcerating, even outside of court and things like that were new and, um, a more vocal aspect of organizing that hadn't we hadn't seen take place in the exact same way not to say that there hasn't been amazing, um, advocacy and community organizing by the public before COVID, there certainly was a lot of fantastic groups that do a lot of great work and push things. But some of that reaction, we actually saw by the government to do things had a little bit of a better impact. Um, but yeah, it was just this weird moment of some things felt more effective than they'd ever been before. While at the same time, everything felt worse than it had ever been before. And you know, you could, you could have strategies that worked really well in one place and did nothing somewhere else, like we had, you know, PILP [the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project] itself, we brought two very similar class action cases, again, about the conditions in county, county city jails during COVID. And they, you know, two very similar little legal teams formed within a month apart very similar issues, and over the past year, they've just turned out very, very differently because of a variety of factors with the defendants involved, the judges involved, what else things that have happened in the community on the outside of it, and it just watching like one strategy diverge into two very different things. And I think that's really what COVID has been emblematic of. I feel like in the work is that we've seen everything change how it happens, and they're still trying to figure out the rhyme or reason to how things happen and figure where we go moving forward with that.

AX 07:43

Do you think it's going to change back to the way it was? Or is this the new status quo? Or none of the above?

AM 07:52

((AM laughs)) I feel like all my answers to these questions are yes and no.

AX 07:55

Sure.

AM 07:56

Um, so I think there's a lot of things that are changing moving forward. So certainly my perspective has changed in some ways. I've always seen the importance of community advocacy, but never had this moment where I knew my hands were completely tied with litigation and the only way anything could be accomplished was through pressure on the politicians and things like that. And that's because of our funding restrictions, that's not work that we could do. So having to sit there and just like, watch other people do these things to try and help our clients and knowing like there's literally nothing I could do, that’s really the first moment that's ever happened, and so that changing, that, that's been a prospective change of, you know, making more of a focus to always incorporate that lens more often because it can be very powerful. I think, as far as with the courts I certainly hope what happened the past 16 months isn't the new status quo, because it's really terrifying when it comes to how much they ignored what should have been what we felt were pretty obvious eighth and fourteenth amendment violations. I certainly hope those standards don't get incorporated elsewhere. Um, and then, I’m trying to think of other things like new status quo. I think, you know, something else again like we're definitely keeping an eye and we’re worried about being the new status quo is just the kind of the way that prisons and jails have been able to use COVID as an excuse to over police incarcerated people and to, um, place even more and more limitations like we're slowly starting to see opening up but it's moving incredibly slow. And kind of keeping an eye out. And that was something that like, not only were concerned about, but during the course of COVID like we did a video project and did interviews with clients about both what what COVID was like behind bars and then as well as what their fears were moving forward and almost unanimously all of their fears moving forward where hey, the prisons now see that they can have us on lockdown 23 hours a day. You know, are they going to keep doing this? They've now seen that they can cut off family, family visitation for 16 months. What new rules are going to be in place moving forward on that? So those are things that we're certainly afraid are going to be the new status quo. Um, I think that, I don't think there's any area of our work or, you know, I think in some ways, any of our lives that’s going to return to how it was pre-COVID.

AX 10:19

What do you think the motivations could be of trying to use COVID as an excuse to just, um, I don't know, clamp down on prisoners?

AM 10:30

Well, I think in some ways, so one example that comes to mind is so with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections we, you know, obviously nationwide you haven't had this precedent of having prisons on basically on full lockdown for 16 months, it's never happened. And before with COVID, like we had, the closest we had was back in September of 2018 we had a 10 day lockdown of the system because of the great fentanyl, mail soaks, you know, overreaction nonsense. Um, and like the prisons were closed for 10 days, and even with being closed for 10 days like the outcry was immediate and rapid and we were on them already at 10 days, we were like if you don't open up soon, like, we're going to be like, we might be in court just to get you to open up after 10 days. And, you know, there was a lot of litigation and policy changes that came out of that short little lockdown. Um. but even with that, and with a lot of our pushback after that lockdown, there were still regulations that changed after that they, that they put in place because of that lockdown and that security threat that stayed. Um, you know, like greater restrictions on visits, greater restrictions on publications, greater restrictions on mail, and things like that. And if, you know, so they had already had this little test case of, hey, we can do this really dramatic thing, and yeah there's gonna be pushback, but we can also still be more restrictive already because we had this kind of built in excuse of a security concern. And now we've gone from that 10 day lockdown to a 16 month lockdown where they weren't challenged about locking down. In fact, in a lot of circumstances, they were encouraged to lock down and we were like, yes, please stop visitors, what are you doing, don't allow visitors, stop, stop, stop. And so like, now they've had that full level of control, um, ((AM laughs)) taking control away from someone once they've had it is really hard to do. And I think that there's been, you know, we’ve seen a lot of pushback from, um, you know, like prisoners getting out of cell time in various ways and things like that that they've now had this level of control. And not even just with full on control in lockdown, but so many things were switched to different technologies to make things more convenient during COVID which were absolutely necessary. Like, again, during COVID, we advocated for video visits, we advocated for everyone to have access to tablets to talk to their family and to get, you know, get mail through tablets, because we also in the middle of COVID had the Postal Service shut down mess. Um, so those were things that were necessary then. But now here we are at the end of it. Like, we want in person visits back, we want real physical mail back, we want, you know, and you've got jails and prisons, like, eh, you guys had visits with family on Zoom, why do you need anything more? Like we already did this thing? Why do more? So it's, I don't know if it's necessarily one specific motivation so much as like you kind of took the lid off the jar and showed that there's a different way of doing things that during COVID was the least restrictive we could get and was like, we advocated for it. It was important. And now that we're past COVID, it's like, well, why, why loosen up anymore? I mean, it takes, it takes a lot of staff to have in person visits and, you know, more contraband is gonna get in with in person visits. And you know, clearly staffed rooms and a whole heck of a lot of contraband, not gonna say that’s not staff. ((AM laughs)). But like, they have all these arguments that sound kind of, okay-ish. Like, we've already been doing this, why change? And then on top of all that, you've got the fact that you, just have you ever seen the problem? Like there's already staffing shortages pre-COVID in prisons and jails. And, and almost it feels like, I haven't looked at the numbers recently, but it feels like almost uniformly those staffing shortages have gotten worse during COVID because people for very well-founded reasons didn't want to go to jobs because their, their bosses weren't protecting them from COVID. So they quit or did other things. And trying to hire back for these positions is going to be hard. And when you have prisons and jails that are already facing staffing shortages, um, the way that they're going, a lot of times the way they're going to address that isn't by, you know, trying to pay people more to get new people in, they're gonna find ways that they can limit programs and services to incarcerated people so they don't need as much staff.

AX 14:44

So question. Is, are these staffing shortages equivalent between private prisons and public prisons? Or is there a disparity there?

AM 14:57

So I'm not really the right person to ask that question for. Because Pennsylvania is lucky in that we have very, very, very few private prisons. So pre-COVID, we had two. We had one county and one federal. And the federal one’s now been shut down. And the county one, I think the contracts, actually, they've said they might not be renewing that contract. So we might actually have no private prisons in Pennsylvania moving forward.

AX 15:18

That’s good news.

AM 15:19

Yeah, it's good news. But also, like, I have no experience with that. But I think in some respects, I think it does and doesn’t change. Because I think the, you know, a lot of the problems that we have in the public prisons is, you know, with guards unions and um, you know, like there's the huge like, the situation in Philadelphia has been awful because of there they were a union contract came up in the middle of the litigation, not in the middle of litigation in the middle of COVID. And so on top of COVID, and on top of everything else, the, there's, you know, bargaining going on to people to stop showing up to work. So you had all of the shortages, and they just kept getting worse and worse and worse. So they had such low staffing that it was incredibly dangerous at that jail. Um, so I think, I think things like that are pretty universal in both public and private, but I don't have as much experience with private.

AX 16:07

So in your experience, as an advocate, is having more staff in a prison, I mean this sounds counterintuitive, but does that sometimes help lift restrictions on prisoners when staff feel like they don't need to exert their power as much because there's more of them?

AM 16:26

I don't think that's, that's not what the correlation between staffing shortages and problems is.

AX 16:33

Okay.

AM 16:34

It’s not the staff feel that they don't need to exert their power as much. It's that, um, for example when you have inadequate correctional staffing, you can't get out of cell times. You have people in lockdown more because if you only have one guard on the unit, you can't also have, you know, because normally the way it works in our, in our prisons and jails, is you have like two or three guards on the unit, and then one of them, one or two of them will be responsible for people while they're in outdoor recreation, and someone would say on the physical unit to watch. So if you have a staffing shortage, that means outside rec is canceled because you don't have somebody to watch them.

AX 17:07

Yeah.

AM 17:08

Or, like, going to commissary or being allowed out of the shelves because you don't have people to watch them. And then when it comes to, um, it's not just correctional staffing. Also when it comes to like your, your medical staffing, which in a lot of our prisons and jails is private companies that are contracted with the prison and jails. When you have medical staffing you have, you know, less access to pill lines, less access to, less access to sick call. Too many S’s in that sentence ((AM laughs)). Um, a whole lot of things. So like it just makes the services being provided and the access worse. And then I think there is, there is also though that element of when people, when there's understaffing to such a degree that the correctional staff don't feel safe, they're more likely to respond more forcefully.

AX 17:53

I see.

AM 17:54

And bring a greater level of violence. So instead of, you know, having your full CERT team of five people, like not that any use of force is going to be constitutionally appropriate, but instead of having like backup and support, if you have only one person on a unit, they're more likely to resort to using their taser instead of trying to use a hold because they feel like they have to up the level of force they're applying because they don't have that backup with them.

AX 18:18

Okay, yeah, no, that correlation makes more sense now. Did you ever sense that staff, I mean, I guess what we've been discussing here is more using the public health protocols as an excuse or justification for restricting prisoners or, you know, the residents mobility within the prison. But in terms of where the public health um, I don't know, measures were neglected, did you ever sense that the staff or other prison officials would neglect public health measures because they would have allowed for greater mobility for the residents?

AM 19:08

Absolutely. I mean, we had that certainly, that was one of the ways that our, um, our Allegheny County and our Philadelphia jail cases were so, became different during COVID, was that in Philadelphia, they were on 23, 24 hour a day lockdown. And it was, they would say staffing shortages can't let people out. Whereas in Allegheny County Jail, we were constantly pushing of, hey, we just got word from our people that you know, per our agreement, you're only supposed to have 10 people out on rec at a time, and you put 30 people out on rec at a time. And we're in the middle of COVID, no vaccines, social distancing, you can't social distance in that room with 30 people. So they were ignoring those and giving, you know, to give people more recreation time even though it put COVID, it put public health requirements at risk. And so it definitely can go, was going both ways. It just depended on the staff and the mentality there and the situation there. Um, and so we had, you know, like in Allegheny County, we very rarely had that same argument that we had in Philadelphia of, you need to let people out of their cells, and said in Allegheny County, we were like, seriously, you need to social distance. There's a way to let people have recreation time in smaller groups, you need to have smaller groups, you need to have smaller groups, what are you doing? Whereas in Philadelphia, it was just full lockdown, not let anybody out more than 10 minutes at a time.

AX 20:27

Yeah, and the reason I asked about the motivations behind it earlier is because some of these decisions seem absurd, that they would potentially risk exposure to themselves, meaning the staff, risk exposure themselves, by not allowing greater mobility and, I don’t know, flexibility around restrictions for the residents.

AM 20:49

I mean, there's also I think the one factor that kind of makes, in some ways, makes the illogical choices more logical from their point of view, certainly not for mine, is the fact that, you know, it's shown in what we're seeing in vaccination rates between with correctional staff and incarcerated people and the general public is just the, you know, the COVID deniers very much exist. And Pennsylvania's very, and Pennsylvania is very much a purple state. Um, and a lot of our, a lot of our state prisons especially are in very rural areas that tended to go one way rather than another and had, you know, but then also, we just had, even in our urban areas, you still had a lot of people who just didn't believe it was as serious as it was, and just felt like, hey, just get everybody exposed, and get this shit over with.

AX 21:36

Yeah.

AM 21:37

And so that really played, like that was, you know, in a lot of circumstances, that's not something that was on paper as the rationale. But you knew it was always a rationale. Like when we were in the middle of the worst of COVID and we had an outbreak at Allegheny County Jail because the guards, a bunch of guards went to first a party on Friday and then a wedding on Sunday. ((AM laughs)).

AX 22:03

Wow.

AM 22:04

And like, completely different groups, and one person at the party on Friday had COVID and spread it and then it went inside. And you're in the middle of like, this isn't like, there weren't even vaccines on the horizon yet. And this stuff is happening, and you're like, what are you thinking? What are you doing? And then even in the prison systems that were taking things, I won't say more seriously, but at least did things to such a degree, we never felt the need to sue them. ((AM laughs)). So like we did our two lawsuits against Allegheny County in Philadelphia and like, throughout, but throughout the pandemic, we were in constant contact with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and talking over things, and they were doing their best. So like the death toll was way too high, and we really needed decarceration, um, to get or to stop that. And that just wasn't something that was ever really on the, um, a matter of possibility in Pennsylvania. But with the Department of Corrections we would see, like, you’d have the higher ups who understood and recognize the seriousness of everything. And then they would keep trying to enforce, hey, staff wear your masks, wear your masks, wear your masks. And then we would have, they'd have like, at one institution, they were able to like trace back one guard who died of COVID probably caught COVID from not wearing his mask while eating lunch in the control bubble. And that they still had mass compliance issues at that prison after that.

AX 23:28

Wow.

AM 23:29

Just weren't taking it seriously. Like, there's only so much administration was able to do because you couldn't, you know, like I just obviously as an advocate, I always say there's more things they could have done. But they really did take a lot on their back, you know, they did take a lot of solid efforts, and we would be talking to them and they’re like, give us ideas, how do we, how do we get people to do this more? Like we’ve told them it's required, but we can't, like, have staff at central office reviewing security cameras from every prison 24/7 to call out people for not wearing masks. And it's like, what, what do we do? How do we address this? And people just didn't care. Or didn't believe, didn't care. You know, there's a lot of that mentality, even from your non-COVID deniers, there's that mentality of eh, I’m healthy, whatever. You know, there's the ablest mentality.

AX 24:16

Yeah.

AM 24:17

Of it's only the sick and elderly who are going to die. So it doesn't matter about me.

AX 24:20

It doesn’t matter to me. Yeah.

AM 24:21

Right. And I think that, just so everything we saw on the outside, as usual, the worst of the outside world is amplified behind bars.

AX 24:31

Interesting. So without I mean, we're not possibly going to break down, you know, every aspect of COVID denial here, but have you ever seen, you know, I'm just gonna say, national politics because I think that was a huge part of COVID denial. Have you ever seen national politics or something, even if it's not political, just some, um, national, cultural phenomenon influence your advocacy like with COVID denial? If that makes sense?

AM 25:04

So I think does that make sense? Yes. So it's obviously not the same death toll. But like one issue that we're still working on and constantly confronting with is providing appropriate medical care and accommodations and safe housing for transgender people when they're incarcerated. And that is something that is obviously very controversial on the national stage. And I feel like a lot of times when we're on the ground at the different prisons and jails, they, sometimes the staff is even like, yeah, no, we get this, we want this to be safe, but we can't do anything about this because whatever politicians are involved in this decision-making would never approve it. So you're like, even if you could have, you know, on the ground medical staff approving someone for gender affirmation surgery, at the end of the day, it doesn't actually get approved and move forward because they know that the politicians who funded their budgets aren't going to allow that. And so that's something. Or just like, you know, recently, there was a really great settlement out of New Jersey that allowed for transgender people to be housed in the facilities matching the gender identification, instead of the gender assigned at birth. That kind of thing is new and innovative and awesome for a lot of, um, innovative is probably the right word, but it's an amazing development because it's not happening in a lot of places because of this cultural animosity and transphobia that we're seeing everywhere. When you're on the ground talking to people like yes, absolutely, there's tons of LGBTQ harassment. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say everybody's fair minded, like, I've definitely like, definitely have some institutions where like, I will argue with the guards on stuff because they'll go out of their way to misgender my clients. But, um, then there'll be other ones where they're just doing the best they can with what they have. And they don't have more and can't do more because of the political cultural issues. Um, so that's one thing. And then another kind of controversial thing that's always in the public conscience that then gets reiterated in the present context is going to be access to reproductive health care. So you know, abortion care and all of that is necessary medical care and should be protected and should be provided in the exact same way as other other medical care. But you get to some of these small county jails that are in very predominantly Catholic areas, especially in Pennsylvania, that's the thing. Very predominantly Catholic area.

AX 27:20

I’m from Pennsylvania so yeah, I’m familiar.

AM 27:25

((AM laughs)). Or there's other things like that. So like, it doesn't matter that there's a Third Circuit opinion from the 1980’s saying that jails have to pay for reproductive health care. ((AM laughs)). It doesn't matter, because they're like, well, my taxpayers are never going to frickin pay for this, like what the heck. Um, and so there's definitely like been other things that are so, there's so much cultural animosity towards it, that it has a huge impact. Um, but obviously nothing to the scale of COVID. But that's just because we haven't had any other disasters to the scale of COVID. Kind of, like, you know, like, a third example would just also be when it comes to racism and religious animosity. So, you know, I do a lot of religious accommodation cases and one thing that just continues to, like, baffle me is, you know, they'll allow certain head coverings for certain people and not for others. And then they'll make this whole big security concern. Like we have this whole case about security concerns with a certain head covering for Nation of Islam. And they're like, oh, well, it's too far away from the head, they can smuggle contraband and then also this stuff. But at the same time, the facilities are providing baseball caps. And I’m like ((AM weighs her hands back and forth)) come on people. And again, that's, there's this cultural animosity towards, a historical prejudice against the Nation of Islam for being radical political terrorists instead of being a religious group. And so I think all of those culture wars, I hate that phrase, but it's kind of accurate in this moment.

AX 28:49

I know what you mean.

AM 28:50

That affect us as a society, they definitely do crop up in the prison setting. And I think COVID was just one of the more stark ones where it was so, the lines were so clearly drawn in a very, like, obvious way. Um, but even then, like we had, like, it's just been, I think COVID just amplified everything. So we even had, like, the racism that's in the prison system, again, cropped up even during COVID. Like we didn't have, like, mandated, everybody in a system wear the same masks when it came to staff. So like, in one correctional system, we had guards coming in wearing masks with monkeys on it. And, like, walking up to black incarcerated people and being like, making comments about matching their masks to how they felt about things. Along with having kind of political advocacy on their masks. And other things that just felt very, you know, problematic.

AX 29:41

Yeah.

AM 29:42

Or like a thin blue line, a thin blue line mask and things like that. And it's like, really? Even like, you know, they were like, okay, I'm required to wear this thing, so I'm going to do it in the most like racist and awful way possible if I have to do it anyways. ((AM laughs)). So.

AX 29:55

Yeah. I mean, you've mentioned a few times the relationship between advocacy and the public and grassroots organizing. Can you speak a little bit more to that?

AM 30:05

Yeah, so I think a lot of why prisons and jails can get away with so much of what they do is because so much of what they, no matter how hard we try, so much of what they do happens behind closed doors. And even when we try to make things public, there's a lot of antipathy towards what happens to incarcerated people because you're going to have that large segment of the population who is, oh, well, you know, don't do the crime if you can't do the time and other bullshit like that. And, um, but the thing is there is this growing, you know, growing social movement that has been going on for years of paying attention to the criminal legal system and the, you know, the racism in the criminal legal system and the other problems from it. And when it comes to prison advocacy and trying to merge those things, it's super important because the most movement we see is when politicians are getting hit from all sides.

AX 31:05

Yeah.

AM 31:06

So and then again, there's times, like COVID is an example, again, this example, this time where litigation couldn't do anything. Like we tried. ((AM laughs)). But there were also times when there just wasn't stuff. Because of the PLRA, we couldn't get immediate release orders. If we wanted to save people's lives, we needed people, we needed the government to do shit before we could litigate a case to meet PLRA requirements. And so having the community, like granted the furlough program that Pennsylvania Department of Corrections put in place, like let out with, next to none, had like the worst requirements. But I think, I don't remember the exact numbers. And I have to go back and look at like my old news reports, but there was, the permit was approved because of the strict requirements, I think only like less than 1,500 people out of the 45,000 would even be eligible in the first place. And then when you actually like went to how many were approved, I think we let out less than less than 200 people. We’re talking about a population of 35,000 people, that mean, that does nothing. But at the same point, for those 200 people, that public advocacy and stuff saved their lives. Like there's no doubt in my mind that that saved their lives. And that even that little itty bitty thing that was a drop in the bucket as far as the overall system, getting that through only happened because of the outcry against the governor and against everybody saying, hey, you have to release our people, release our elders, these people aren't dangerous, let them out. And so all of those things happened because of the public outcry, not because of litigation. Um, and I think that is a very important element. Because, you know, the courts can only do so much. ((AM laughs)). And my perspective on what the courts can do has greatly, has gotten much more cynical the past 16 months. ((AM laughs)). Um, just because you know, should have, I felt like some of these things should have been easier than they were. Um, and you know, politicians are gonna be politicians. And while sometimes they'll need a court order to do something that they want to do but they're afraid to do, at other times, there's things that if there's enough public outcry, they'll do it just to, like, make the public shut up.

AX 33:06

Yeah.

AM 33:07

And so I think, plain, you have to use every, I hate using a maxim. But yeah, use every tool in the toolbox. Because you never know exactly what thing is going to resonate with who.

AX: 33:20

Since you mentioned politicians, I know there's this narrative right now that rising trends in violent crime, even though crime overall is decreasing, might hurt the criminal justice reform movement. Um, setting aside whether or not that's even legitimate or accurate, have you felt any influence at all just in your advocacy in the past year, either with that trend, or just generally backlash maybe to the racial justice protests last summer? I mean.

AM 33:55

Um, as far as, like, rising crime rates and things like that, I haven't really seen or felt any backlash on that part, in part because our advocacy is focused so, like, very specifically on just conditions for people while they're incarcerated. We're not allowed to do anything in any other part of the system. So we're not involved in the bail reform cases or anything else where that really comes into play as much. Um, as far as a response to the protests, I think that (0.5) I don't know. I feel like there was, in some ways, there was a lot of pushback. Um, and we had, like, there was like the momentary matching things of like when the protests were happening. We had, like, the federal prisons went on lockdown at the same time. And things like responding to that. And I know from talking to a lot of my clients, they certainly felt the impact of the protests and the backlash from the guards. Like, they all felt like everybody that they suspected was racist became more openly racist in their interactions with them as a result of it, since it was already being talked about and they were pissed off that it was being talked about. They just decided to do whatever they wanted, um, and so, like, I think all of, all of my clients were like and everything in some ways, a lot of things got worse for them as far as racist incidents and racist comments because the guards were pissed off about the protests. Um, but outside of things like that, I think it hasn't had too large of an obvious negative, or any kind of, not any kind of impacts, because it certainly, taking a step back, it certainly had an impact on, again, refocusing our work. So, as you know, as an organization, that does work, um, for a population that is disproportionately a black and brown population, we've always been aware of the racial underpinnings of mass incarceration and the problems that go into all of that. But in light of the protests, in that we've definitely taken the time to refocus and make sure that racial justice is more of a larger piece of our work. And then instead of just taking every case based on just those case factors, bringing in other things, and focusing on the racial impact of, of the different types of cases, and the different players who are involved in the case, um, and the systems at play is definitely, like, we've refocused on that and, um, kind of, it's always, it's now always one of the questions we ask when we’re thinking about advocacy and questions is like, how do we bring how do we make sure that racial justice is an important piece in our decision to do XYZ? Um, because we saw that, how the protests and the public outrage didn't do a lot to change the systems in our, when it comes to our clients. But it did make everybody focus on it. And it did meet, you know, there's still a lot of draw to that kind of work by funders and by other things. And, you know, while people, you know, we want to make sure that people don't let that die out.

AX 37:00

Yeah.

AM 37:01

Like, we want people to keep talking about it. And if we want people to keep talking about it, if we want the court to think about the fact that this thing is happening to our clients because of a racist system, we have to keep calling it out. And so we've definitely made a more concerted effort in light of the protests that last summer to call that out every chance that we get.

AX 37:21

Fair enough. Uh, not quite related to that, but how else would you say you've noticed your clients’ lives and perspectives have changed over the past year? Um, you mentioned the protest. What about the pandemic in general, your relationship with them, anything along those lines?

AM 37:44

Yeah, I think it goes without saying that the pandemic had such a hugely negative and awful impact on all of them. Um, you know, and my relationships, I feel like they're all still fine. Um, but I know for all of my clients, for certain of my clients, I've had up how often I talk to them because they are, you know, putting on like, as an advocate, my eyes view my job not just to be their lawyer, but also like to walk them through the case and be a support system for them as well. And for a lot of my, you know, in addition to the fact that our system is incredibly racist, our system is also incredibly ablest, and leads to the over incarceration of people with disabilities, especially people with psychiatric disabilities. And you take that very vulnerable population, and you put them in these torturous conditions, and you combine all of that with the fear of the pandemic, and the harm that the pandemic has caused to those of us on the outside with slightly more, with more freedoms. Um, and you add all of that together, and it's just a recipe for a very awful situation. So I have had, you know, some of my clients who are battling, um, their own mental illness issues that aren't being treated correctly or struggling for accommodation for their gender dysphoria, all of those things have been magnified in COVID. So for example, one way that my one client coped with their gender dysphoria was by working out more to more masculinize their body. They couldn't, they couldn't get the medical care they needed, so that was one thing they would do. But during COVID, they're not allowed to go out. They weren't, during the worst parts of COVID, they weren't allowed to go out and run on the tracks. They weren't allowed to go out and use the gym. So on top of all the other things, they also had to deal with their gender dysphoria getting worse because they had lost that coping mechanism too. And then, um, I think for my, you know, certainly I have lots of clients who don't have family that they stay in contact with regularly. And so being that only lifeline to them, um, was a lot of pressure and added a lot of things. But then even for those clients who do have family, um, the loss, the complete loss and cut off of being able to have that physical visit and to see their kids and to know, to have such a cut off, and when, like, what the news between people were. Like, at one point during the worst of the lockdown, it would take, you know, it could take three to four weeks to get messages in and out. And so people knew that there was this pandemic going on, they knew they had medically vulnerable parents and siblings and kids on the outside. And they also knew they weren't going to know if their family member got sick with COVID until it was too late and they died. Um, and things, like, and I had, you know, one client’s mother died. Um, and then like, just keeping an eye on the ongoing toll that this pandemic and the lock, resulting lockdown has taken on our client population is something that will have very, very lasting effects. Like we spent so much of our work talking about how solitary confinement is torture, and how 15, 30 days in solitary confinement, um, in the before times ((AM laughs)) was torture.

AX 41:02

Yeah.

AM 41:03

And could have lasting damage on people's psyche. And then you add in this worldwide trauma event. And you put people in the worst situation where they could do nothing. Like not only were they dealing with COVID, not, but on top of that, like they literally could take no actions to protect themselves. They couldn't socially distance, they couldn't, so the mental stress of that, and thinking about how many of my clients who didn't have psychiatric diagnoses before the pandemic may very well have them after because of the torture they've endured over this past year and a half. And then, you know, I was lucky in one way in that none of my clients died from COVID. Dying, as I like, I had a lot of very medically vulnerable clients, so I was very, like, I was, there was definitely times during the pandemic where I was, like, pulling up the inmate locator, like, everyday.

AX 41:52

Absolutely.

AM 41:53

Checking to see how my clients with, like, COPD, like, making sure they were still in the locator so I knew they were still at the prison, and thus I could assume they had at least been alive 24 hours ago. Um, but, you know, still like we, and the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections alone, over 100 people died. And then from COVID, but then there's also, and I hate using this word because it minimizes it, but the collateral consequences of the lockdowns. Like I had one of my former clients, who had schizophrenia and a number of other diagnoses, um, killed himself during the pandemic. And while incarcerated. And I can't help but assume that a large portion of that was from the trauma of everything going on and being in lockdown. Because I knew, you know, things I knew about that client from before, I knew that the lockdown would have a particularly negative impact on him. And so that's one of those impacts that like, where do we go from here? We have this population that was already at risk and is already being tortured and already has poor health care.

AX 43:00

Yeah.

AM 43:01

And then we just had the worst happen for all of them. And how do we recover from that? And where do we go from there? And what is, you know, is, you know, what are the facilities going to do to provide counseling to everybody on the outside of this? Because I think, I feel like even in the outside world, I think we all kind of need some counseling after this. ((AM laughs)). Let alone those that have literally been tortured the entire time.

AX 43:33

Do you think there was any way that, with the prisons we have in America as they’re designed now, there was an appropriate way they could have handled the pandemic? I mean, that's a big question. But I guess more what I’m trying to understand…

AM 43:36

I mean it’s, it’s not a big question. I mean, it is a big question. But it's not a hard question to answer.

AX 43:41

Yeah.

AM 43:42

In that the thing they could have done was the thing we were all screaming from the rooftops from day one they had to do. Which none of, very few of them did. Which was actually release people and keep people out.

AX 43:55

Yeah.

AM 43:56

Like, not a one-time release order to make the press and then slowly over the next 16 months, let the numbers climb again. Not a, like, mild, like, oh, we're setting up this program that only lets less than one percent of our population out. Um, like, actual decarceration was the only way to stop the travesty that we saw. There were other harm reduction ways that you could have taken that, you know, different prisons and jails certainly didn't. I mean, I'm sure every single prison and jail didn't follow, like, every single prison and jail violated COVID protocol, protocols in some way, I'm sure.

AX 44:35

Yeah.

AM 44:36

So there's some way that they could have kept numbers down even with the populations that they had. But, from day one, we always knew litigating those things and fighting over soap and masks was the best of a bad situation we could make. And what really needed to happen was releases. Because time and time again, history has borne out, and COVID again borne out that you cannot stop infectious diseases in congregate settings, especially in the prison and jail context where you have a population that is already, um, in a very poor physical state and has no access to adequate medical, medical care. Like there was no way for this not to be a disaster outside of releasing people. Which I will admit, you know, a lot of the prison, you know, that's, that is a burden that is not on the prisons and jails. You know, they can't, they can't, that was a burden on the politicians. So the prison, you know, though, you know, in some jurisdictions, I know that some of the county jails could have done more furloughs that they didn't need the courts to sign off on and this and that, and, you know, So there certainly was ways that other prisons and jails could have improved it. But really, that was, you know, and we all, I think maybe it was one of the most frustrating things about this is the fact that it wasn't that we were all in a position where we didn't know what to do. It's that we all knew exactly what needed to be done. And nobody would do it.

AX 46:06

Part of my job here is I'm also doing research on compassionate release cases. And a lot of them involve First Step Act litigation. Do you think the First Step Act really made a significant impact in decarceration efforts? Or is it more of just a drop in the bucket? I mean.

AM 46:29

So I can only speak to that very, very, a tiny bit, because again, compassionate, compassionate releases outside of the work that we were allowed to do.

AX 46:37

Okay.

AM 46:38

But from what I saw, from what I saw from my colleagues, who were also in that field, what I've seen from everyone else, like, you know, and given the death tolls we saw in the federal prison system like it, it was a drop in the bucket. It was a great thing to do, but it didn't come anywhere near it. And again, it wasn't even effectuated to, you know, it was, again, it was another example of a thing that only accomplished a limited goal. And then it was implemented in such a way that it didn't even accomplish a substantial portion of its limited use. ((AM laughs)). Like there were, because of how people in the facility level could intervene and all these other pieces that were required, like, I, I know that we certainly got dozens and dozens of letters from people who were like, oh, well, obviously, you should be able to get this, like from what we know. Like you should be able to get this. And, you know, none of them did. So.

AX 47:34

Where do you think your, you know, not just your advocacy, but advocacy in general can really push forward the most in decarceration efforts?

AM 47:48

I think a lot of the efforts that have been already started and continuing on bail reform and on things like that are certainly important. I think that holding jails to account for the fact that like, yes, there's a lot of stories in the media about rising crime wave bullshit, blah, blah, blah, blah. But when you actually look from county to county, and you look at like, hey, like, one of our local county jails pre-pandemic was running like 280 people and now it's down to 150. Like, why do you have to go back? Like, what? Okay, like, why? You did this thing for a long time and nothing happened. Like, why go back? Get

AX: 48:34

(So it couldn’t be a) positive feedback.

AM 48:36

Yeah, like, it doesn't even make sense for them. Like, like, having that conversation with, with the, the counties and jails, and jails, and state, and the prison system and just being like, look, like, you already reduced. You had no negative outcome. It's more money for you to re-increase your population, like you already have the system that works. You came up with a way to really, because some, you know, certainly not all counties, certainly not even most counties, but some counties did come up with, like, very set rules of like people they just wouldn't put in jail during the pandemic. And just keep those in place. Like there's, there's no reason to take those away. And that's one little step. And then the other advocacy is just continuing to push on all those things that those conversations we started to have. Like, not started, that's not, it's unfair to say we started to have them. There's plenty of advocates and community organizers who have been having these conversations for years. Like in Pennsylvania, the Coalition Against Death by Incarceration, they've been having this conversation for years. But you know, Pennsylvania has a very high life-without-parole number. Um, and the advocacy that then was amplified even more so during COVID, I was just like, we've got these people in our prisons and jails who are 60 to 90 years old. Why? ((AM laughs)).

AX 49:49

Yeah.

AM 49:50

Why? And like continuing to push on those because, you know, not only are they, is there absolutely no reason for them to be incarcerated at this point. But they're the people who are always going to be the most vulnerable for the next COVID. And we also have to like, I think that's the other kind of policy not in part of, you know, keeping an eye on decarceration. But also just like a harm reduction moving forward is like, we have learned some things from the absolute travesty that was the past year and a half. And we now know that every single prison and jail in this country needs to have a plan for the next COVID. And it needs to have all of these different elements. It needs to be fast-acting in the county, and, you know, we need to work with politicians to come up with ways to emergency decarcerate as well as long term decarcerate. And, you know, now that we've seen this happen, I think that we can kind of all agree that this is unfortunately unlikely to be a one-time thing.

AX 50:45

Yes.

AM 50:46

Like, hopefully, it's not again anytime soon. But it's gonna happen again. And now we've seen, so we just, like, we've got it. So let's figure out what we do next time so next time we don't have 600,000 people die.

AX 51:01

How likely do you think it is that the prison system will actually prepare?

AM 51:06

That's going to change, that, system by system. Like, there are certain, like, I can think of certain systems in Pennsylvania that once we get, you know, once they feel like they're past COVID, I feel like I can go back to them and be like, all right. Let's sit and have an advocacy and agency and let's like, get all of the key players in the room and talk about what could have gone better. And let's get a place in, like, there's certain actors that I can see having that conversation with. And there’s certain system that I so know that there's no point in it. I'm not even gonna bother sending that first email, hey, let's talk and debrief and figure out next steps. Like, I know, they're gonna ignore us until we sue them again. Next time. So yeah, whatever. Um, but I think that, I certainly hope that politicians and state agencies and county agencies realize it's something they need to think about more, it's kind of in that same context, when you think about, like, we've long had this problem in prisons and jails with fire safety. What we've always seen is like, once a prison burns down, the next time they have a prison, the jail actually remembers to have an evacuation policy. ((AM laughs)).

AX 52:15

Yeah.

AM 52:16

And have sprinklers and have all that in place. So on a bigger level, okay, we've had, we've had the, we've had a pandemic, let's, let's know how to deal with the next one. Like we've learned. And, you know, there's a part of me that wants to be optimistic and hopeful that, you know, like, if we come across another pandemic, that's, you know, in any way similar to this, we won't have the same pushback from the courts of oh, they didn't know what they were doing. Because we can be like, oh, you know, really, because like a decade ago, when they did COVID, they did the same things bad, and they then had time to create a new policy. But at the same time, I don't want to be, a, I want it in place before that. But, you know, it's also hard to be optimistic about our court some days. ((AM laughs)).

AX 52:55

It very much is. Yeah, so, okay, last question. What are the biggest lessons you will take professionally and personally as an advocate from the pandemic?

AM 53:08

Um. (.) Kind of, I think the, the personal lesson is that, even when everything is hellfire, it's still important to take a few minutes to step back every now and then. Um, because I'm definitely that workaholic that certainly never did that before the pandemic. Um, I mean, I was, I'm always that person that like, has to use all my vacation right before it gets spent, right before it expires, and all of that. But, like, in the middle of an ongoing, long term emergency, realizing that we still need to take time to like, figure out where you're at on a personal level, because sometimes, like, you know, like, working through the weekend, you know, 14 hours a day isn't going to be as beneficial to my clients as like taking a day to sleep and then working for them again on Monday. Um, and I think in some ways, there's been a little bit of a less-than work-life balance over the past 16 months. Because there's definitely a couple of moments of, it felt like burnout of non-stop-ness. Um, and then I think, kind of on a more professional, figuring out level of just remembering that while we like, you know, both in my own organization where we have, you know, three separate offices, but even like on a statewide level, we have all these different organizations, like a lot of things that have happened during COVID has been a lot of reaching across the lines and building a community, building a support network and consolidating resources in a way that, you know, keeping some of that moving forward and realizing that there's not just one way to do things. So you know. Zoom right now is the bane of my existence, but it has its place. ((AM laughs)).

AX 54:52

Right. For all of us.

AM 54:55

But, um, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot more, a lot of ways we can be flexible about things to get things done. And they're certainly, and also, I think the other, like, small thing is just like, never again, taking in person visits with my client for, clients for granted. ((AM laughs)).

AX 55:11

100 percent.

AM 55:12

I definitely, I definitely never imagined a world where it would be like 17 months since I last saw any of my clients. Um, but I think, you know, taking advantage of those opportunities when they're there. But then also, like, sometimes you have to be creative, not just in how you approach things, but also who you work with. And building those relationships, not just with other advocates, but even with, you know, the county and state governments that you're normally on opposite sides with. Like, you can find some common ground of hey, we don't, we, you know, realized during the pandemic, we can find the common ground of, hey, we don't want everybody to die. So let's work together for once. And kind of continuing to foster those relationships moving forward, um, are some of the positives to be taken from it.

AX 56:04

Fair enough. Well, I'm going to stop the recording