© 2024 KVPR | Valley Public Radio - White Ash Broadcasting, Inc. :: 89.3 Fresno / 89.1 Bakersfield
89.3 Fresno | 89.1 Bakersfield
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Double your impact! New monthly gifts are matched through March 19. Give now.

Weekend Protests Aim To Draw Attention To Explosive Spread Of COVID-19 In Valley’s Prisons

@oaklandabosol on Twitter
A Tweet from December 10 shares information about protests planned in the San Joaquin Valley on December 13, 2020.

As COVID-19 infections continue to rise throughout the San Joaquin Valley, they’re also ravaging the Valley’s prisons. That’s why two advocacy groups have planned protests this weekend outside prisons in Kings, Fresno and Kern Counties.

At Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, where more than 1,600 incarcerated men have tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began, nearly 1,200 of those infections have been reported in just the last two weeks. It’s the latest in a scourge of congregate living facilities that has already landed two Kings County institutions, Avenal State Prison and the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison (SATF) in Corcoran, on a list of the largest outbreaks in the country.

Eric Palba, an organizer with the advocacy group Oakland Abolition and Solidarity, says this weekend’s protests demand early releases for some inmates and better living conditions for others. “The purpose is to draw attention to the overall gross mishandling and negligence around the COVID-19 outbreak inside prisons across the system,” he says, “but it’s impacting people most in the Central Valley right now.”

Palba credits inmate transfers, moving men from one dorm to another, and inconsistent enforcement of safety protocols for the fact that thousands of men in the Valley’s prisons have contracted the virus, and more than a dozen have died. Upwards of half the incarcerated men have been infected at many Valley prisons, including Pleasant Valley, and the nearly 3,000 infections at Avenal represent more than 80 percent of that facility’s population. “People are scared and stressed out and looking for ways to fight back,” says Palba, who mentions men incarcerated at SATF recently ended a hunger strike.

The protests, planned for Sunday morning at prisons in Coalinga, Corcoran, Delano and Wasco, were organized by Palba’s group and the statewide advocacy organization We Are Their Voices. Organizers have called for participants to wear masks and observe social distancing.

This story has been edited with the correct location of the organization We Are Their Voices.

Kerry Klein is an award-winning reporter whose coverage of public health, air pollution, drinking water access and wildfires in the San Joaquin Valley has been featured on NPR, KQED, Science Friday and Kaiser Health News. Her work has earned numerous regional Edward R. Murrow and Golden Mike Awards and has been recognized by the Association of Health Care Journalists and Society of Environmental Journalists. Her podcast Escape From Mammoth Pool was named a podcast “listeners couldn’t get enough of in 2021” by the radio aggregator NPR One.
Related Content