Help Protect Incarcerated People by Providing Cloth Masks

UPDATE:

Hello to our generous mask donators–

With your help, we delivered 3, 585 masks to the Department of Public Security & Corrections in early May 2020. Thank you so much! We will continue to accept masks and deliver them to DPS&C so that incarcerated people will have more reliable protection in prisons.

 We are now accepting cloth masks with elastic pieces for the ears (please no masks with filters or metal nose pieces). If you want to help, please fill out this form to let us know how many masks you can donate and for mailing/pickup instructions.

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As the COVID-19 virus continues spreading throughout Louisiana’s prisons, IPNO is deeply concerned about our incarcerated clients, who are mostly housed at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola—the largest prison in the United States. Approximately 8,000 people either work at or are incarcerated at Angola, where social distancing is impossible and following CDC sanitation guidelines is hugely challenging.

Though visitation is currently suspended, thousands of employees travel in and out of Louisiana’s prisons for work. May 8th, 126 Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPSC) staff members and 347 incarcerated people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Louisiana. In addition, Louisiana plans to transfer people incarcerated at jails around the state who have tested positive for COVID-19 to Angola and Allen Prisons, heightening an already dangerous situation, increasing crowding, and housing sick people in a prison facility, Camp J, that was closed due to unsanitary conditions in 2018.

While we continue to work with our allies and community leaders to ensure that incarcerated members of our community are protected, we also know that cloth masks can help prevent the virus from spreading. Cloth masks are not a replacement for personal protective equipment (PPE), but they provide some protection for both DPS&C staff and incarcerated people, including our vulnerable clients.

To that end, and with the permission of the Department of Corrections (DOC), we are collecting cloth masks to send to the DOC in Louisiana in an attempt to flatten the curve in prisons. We are looking for donations of cloth masks (no metal nosepieces, elastic is now accepted). An example of the type of masks we’re looking for can be found here .

If you want to help, please fill out this form and let us know how many masks you can donate, and we will send you instructions for pick-up or drop-off. If you can’t donate, please share widely!

Thank you for helping us protect incarcerated members of our community.