Voices Inside and Out

Commentary: COVID-19 in Port Cartier Federal Prison

Episode Summary

Former Port Cartier prisoner, Lawrence Da Silva, provides insights into prison life at that maximum federal institution and advises on how prisoners there could be better protected.

Episode Notes

• How sanitary are the conditions in maximum prisons and are prisoners being given adequate cleaning supplies to disinfect adequately to fend off COVID 19?
• 9 guards and 2 prisoners: How effective were the screening mechanism for the guards who have likely introduced the virus into the prison?  
• Are guards  taking adequate precautions to avoid spreading virus from one prisoner to another? like changing gloves or washing hands after touching one prisoner and before touching another one
• Are prisoners being provided with masks and gloves?  Or even given the capacity to make masks for themselves? 
• Where are the ill prisoners being quarantined?  In medical units, in old segregation cells, or in trailers that are likely available since all family visits have stopped?
• What is the capacity of local hospital to cope with community outbreak and ill prisoners?  Will prisoners get inferior health care?