LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Lansing inmate Michael Yardley’s sense of taste and smell has faded, a tell-tale sign of the coronavirus that’s infected 551 of his fellow prisoners and killed three.
“I feel like I’m in a tomb,” the 42-year-old said during a phone call Tuesday.
Kansas prisons have been under stress from years of understaffing, rising inmate populations and riots. Talk of overhauling the state’s criminal justice system and releasing large numbers of low-level offenders remains just that.
In a few short weeks, COVID-19 has only kindled those long-term problems, overwhelming Lansing Correctional Facility. Dozens of employees have tested positive for the coronavirus, compounding a staff shortage that has left jobs vacant for years.
Over the past month, disturbances have rocked Lansing, Ellsworth Correctional Facility and the state’s juvenile correctional facility, representing the most serious inmate unrest in more than a year.
Additionally, the debate among state leaders over prison reform is now at a boil as demands increase to let out some of the 9,700 people currently incarcerated, The Wichita Eagle reports.
As coronavirus cases in Lansing mounted, Gov. Laura Kelly promised her administration would announce the early release of some inmates. The Democrat has long said the state is holding too many non-violent offenders.
But after testing revealed that 75 percent of inmates in one Lansing unit had the virus, Kelly said her administration was “rethinking” early releases. Just six inmates across the state — and none from Lansing — have been let out and put on house arrest.
“We have to make sure we’re not putting people who are infected into our communities,” Kelly told The Kansas City Star’s editorial board last week. Across the prison system, at least 652 staff and inmates have tested positive for coronavirus. The vast majority are in Lansing.
Defense attorneys and advocates on Monday condemned what they called Kelly’s failure to act, charging that it has led to infection and chaos.
“That is not leadership,” the directors of the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Kansas Board of Indigents’ Services, the Midwest Innocence Project and the Kansas federal public defender and said in a joint statement.
Calls for inmate releases have only intensified. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing to improve conditions for inmates and seeking the release of others, alleging violations of constitutional rights protecting against cruel and unusual punishment. Some legislators are also pressuring Kelly to act.
“I am very frustrated,” Sen. David Haley, a Kansas City Democrat, said.
“There is no reason to submit to a potential life-threatening or death sentence” for inmates in prison for a “minor amount of time,” Haley said.
Lansing Correctional Facility was supposed to be the gleaming new gem of the state prison system.
