My name is Jeremy, and this is the story of how I ended up with COVID in the custody of the BOP.

I am accusing the BOP and the institutions in which I was housed of blatant, deliberate, and criminally negligent behavior that has resulted in myself and other inmates suffering from a virus that has killed over half a million people and left countless others with lifetime complications, grief, and immeasurable loss. I will not only document how we were treated, but I will also document the steps that should have been taken to assure the safety of myself and my fellow inmates.

April 2, 2020, I was taken to the Special Housing Unit at FCI Edgefield for using a cell phone to update a Facebook group detailing the conditions in our prison. I was given a 30-day disciplinary sanction. Instead of serving my 30-day sentence, I ended up spending the next 240 days of my life in that solitary unit. For the first 75 days, I was locked behind a door for 24 hours a day. I was eventually given one hour of outside recreation a week for the duration of my time there. Throughout the entire experience, we were continually told that we were no longer being punished, and the reason for our continued isolation was purely for our safety. If that’s true, I believe that statement to be completely ingenuine, which makes the decisions that followed even more egregious.

The correctional officers we received our food and supplies from routinely did not wear masks. We were never given any instructions on how to combat COVID-19, nor symptoms to look for. On the whole, the officers disseminated their belief that the whole thing was a political ploy and a hoax. As a solution to our experience at Edgefield, I would offer this: keep inmates at their current facilities. Even after my disciplinary write-up, I was still in the “camp” custody level category. Instead of taking the scientifically-backed data of the pandemic seriously, the BOP continued business as usual and put a management variable on me to raise my custody level, which made me ineligible to return to the satellite camp. Rejecting the application of a management variable is not without precedence. In fact, in June 2019, men who received cell phone write-ups were brought back to the camp because Grand Prarie (the seat of ultimate BOP authority) denied the management variables. So, when it was inconvenient for the BOP to ship prisoners, they sent them back to where they were. During a worldwide pandemic, they could find no such mercy.

After testing negative for the virus twice in a single month and a half, I was transferred to the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta for holdover. During that time we were supposed to be allowed out of our cells for 30 minutes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to shower, call our families, and use the e-mail system. The officers were supposed to let out only five cells at a time. Instead, officers would let out as many as 30 cells at once. Never during my time at USP Atlanta did I see a phone or computer wiped down, nor were there sterile towels or cleaning supplies stationed near the devices despite signs stating that each device was sanitized after each use. During the 61 days that I was housed at USP Atlanta, we went as many as six days straight without even being let out to shower. Not once were we given any explanation.

The officers informed new arrivals that they would be tested twice before they were allowed to move on to another institution, yet during my time there, not a single inmate was given a COVID test. On January 26, 2020, we were moved to the Oklahoma transport facility. During our transfer, we were confined in extremely close quarters and forced to squeeze into tiny cells while posted signs implored us to safely social distance. The solutions to this heinous disregard for human life in the face of a devastatingly contagious pandemic are so blatantly obvious that it would be insulting to my readers’ intelligence to list them. To the BOP and USP Atlanta, these solutions are not quite as obvious.

Upon our arrival in Oklahoma, we once again received zero testing for COVID-19. We were taken to our cells and allowed out for 45 minutes a day for showering, accessing e-mail, and phone usage. At this institution, they did attempt to sanitize the phone, computer, and showers after each group was let out, and they did stick to the policy of allowing only five cells out at a time. While I applaud their attempt at keeping the institution and its charges safe, there is still room for improvement. For one, the cleaning supplies employed by staff are not approved to kill the virus. And yet another glaringly obvious oversight: we were once again never tested.

On February 22, 2021, 120 inmates were placed in U.S. Marshall custody to fly us to our regional transfer centers. Yet again, no tests were given. The plane was at max capacity—every seat was taken. We were each given one squirt of hand sanitizer upon entering the plane; no other self-cleaning method was offered during our flight to Atlanta, then on to Harrisburg. Once we arrived in Harrisburg, we were placed back in the custody of the BOP and FCI Fort Dix, in New Jersey. There were 44 inmates for a 40-person capacity bus, so a van had to follow with the overflow inmates.

When we arrived at FCI Fort Dix, we were given COVID tests before being split up and placed into two small cells where everyone had no choice but to stand close to one another. Signs continued to remind us to safely social distance. After huddling up in these cells, we were taken to our so-called “quarantine” unit where we would be safe. “Safe.” On Tuesday and Wednesday, three more inmates were added to our quarantine unit, and all (reportedly) were given a rapid COVID test. On Thursday morning, we were informed that 31 more inmates were coming by bus and would be added to our unit.

Around 2 p.m., staff called two of the inmates who came in with our initial group on Monday and informed them that they had tested positive for COVID-19. Needless to say, every last man in that unit had been in close contact with those inmates throughout the entire transfer experience. Every one of us should have been considered to have been exposed and likely positive. At 6 p.m., the staff brought in 28 more inmates to our unit. I suggested to the newcomers that they demand to be taken to a different unit rather than being placed in an open dorm setting with over 40 people who had been exposed directly to the virus. The officer told us she would listen to our worries only after she worked out the bed assignments for the new inmates.

We were informed by the incoming inmates that they’d received rapid COVID tests upon arrival. Why were we given 4-day tests on Monday, yet on Thursday of the same week, they gave the new arrivals rapid tests? Why didn’t we all receive rapid tests? Why didn’t they have results before placing us all in the same unit? Why?

I am experiencing virtually all the symptoms of COVID-19, but they have as yet still refused to come test all of us who have been directly exposed to the virus. An officer contacted her superior lieutenant, and he came and listened to our concerns. Lieutenant Barch listened to my concerns personally, including my admission that I’m showing all symptoms (I’m not the only one). Lieutenant Barch claimed that there was nothing he could do. He then had the audacity to ask what we suggest they should have done.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think it would be unreasonable to expect that we all should’ve been tested again before adding 28 more people to our unit containing two men who’d just received positive results mere hours before. I don’t think it would be unreasonable to contact whatever superior made such inconsiderate decisions and attempt to find a solution. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that the institution should have had a contingency plan in place if one of our tests from Monday did come back positive. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that they should’ve placed the 28 new arrivals into a dorm currently empty. In fact, I find it criminally negligent to knowingly place 28 human lives in danger of contracting a deadly virus for the simple reason that it would have been inconvenient to change the plans.

I know this situation is hard, I know the answers to this pandemic seem elusive, but come on. We should’ve been given rapid swabs before leaving Oklahoma. They should’ve waited for test results to come back before adding more inmates to the quarantine unit. They should at least attempt to keep us safe, to treat us like human beings instead of numbers. For 11 months I was locked behind a door “for my own safety,” only to then be immediately exposed to the virus by the same people claiming to care about my safety.

I am a cannabis prisoner incarcerated in a state where the medicine is now legal, so let me ask the reader this question: is knowingly placing 28 people in a situation where they have nearly a 100% chance of contracting a deadly virus not worse than providing cannabis to consenting adults?

Hopefully, I survive this. Hopefully, we all do. If we do, it will be without assistance from the people charged with keeping us safe.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story.