Covid In Prison 2021

Advocating on her husband’s behalf, Chazedy Bowman became increasingly frustrated. Her husband had covid symptoms and no one would give her answers. “What we were hearing from the Governor is NOT what we were hearing from not just our loved ones, but other people inside prisons.” Bowman began calling the Ohio prison daily and found out her husband did indeed have Covid, waiting seven days until a doctor saw him on a routine chronic care visit barely able to breathe due to his asthma and increasingly weakening lungs. Others with symptoms had 14 day quarantines with no healthcare, just temperature checks. Her husband, Rufus had been in the general population as well.  “We’re just asking that our loved ones get the proper care that the CARES act gave this state billions of dollars to make sure they get that,” Bowman added. 

With Bowman becoming her own advocate, she joined fellow friends and loved ones who are incarcerated and just began calling Ohio’s varied correctional facilities every day. Bowman’s group started making calls turning 25 into 100, and over nine months they did 2500 calls documenting the health of incarcerated persons using a wellness check form they created. “We started advocating solely just about COVID. That's all it started out to be. We weren't even trying to be advocates.” In turn, Bowman and fellow loved ones of incarcerated residents formed an advocacy group, The Justice League. 

It goes like this: everybody had a superhero with each hero representing several facilities in Ohio. For example, if one was Wonder Woman, they had five facilities, and someone was Captain America and they’d have six and so on. “We had about five to seven women, and we took on the character as the people started filing complaints with The Justice League; from infractions to abuse to health denials.” Bowman has no intention of taking on the Ohio criminal justice system but wants her husband and others cared for and listened to. The group slowly became an outlet for families seeing information of a loved one or friend. “You know, we have had families whose loved ones had died from COVID. They didn't know for, like, 30 days that they had passed. This isn't you, they had no clue that their loved one had passed. For several families.” 

What The Justice League began doing is to make a centralized hub for folks to get proper information and to drop a complaint describing the goings on inside the prison. Bowman’s husband is at Toledo Corrections where many on the outside didn’t know they could call up the actual facility to get answers. Was the state negligent toward its covid population?

A Facebook group was created with the group blowing up, generating Bowman’s own nonprofit with her as Lead Organizer for Operation Change Cincy. The mission of  Operation Change Cincy is simply to evoke real change for CIncinnatians as they influence citizens to vote.  “We're stuck trying to figure out how we can help because it's/it was a hot item in 2020, to talk about COVID. And prisons. Folks have really forgotten that. I mean, it's still happening. And it's worse.” 

Accidentally becoming a community advocate isn’t what Bowman predicted out of this situation but starting a call center is just the first step of her mission. Policy making and lobbying on behalf of the criminal justice system’s need for reform is another project. Her next issue is the need for correctional officers to have body cameras at all times and her “Stay Focused” program pairing someone inside with someone outside as a Big brother or sister. Her husband is better now but still cautious of interacting with people. 

All across the US some residents are still not allowed to have visitors while the Ohio Correctional Department is allowing visits, such as Toledo Correctional, but visitors must take a rapid covid test with visits. “Because if we have to step in, we're going to turn loose about 300 people that's going to call this prison to fix the problem,” And they're not gonna stop calling until real change is met.