An Incarcerated Artist Memorializes the “Forgotten” People Killed By COVID in Prison
Mother Jones, May 25, 2021: An Incarcerated Artist Memorializes the “Forgotten” People Killed By COVID in Prison
“Since last summer, Joyner, a 37-year-old portrait artist, has been working with a team of activists on a project called Mourning Our Losses to memorialize the thousands of incarcerated people who have died from COVID-19 nationwide. The coronavirus death rate has been three times higher in prisons than elsewhere in the United States. But prisons don’t often share much information about the people who die inside them, other than their names and crimes; sometimes, their family members or friends aren’t even notified. ‘A lot of people who have done a considerable amount of time end up being forgotten,’ says Joyner, who was incarcerated less than a month after her 18th birthday and is serving a life sentence. Mourning Our Losses aims to fill the gap by recruiting activists around the country to research their lives and write their obituaries. So far, the project has published more than 200 memorials.”
Additional reading:
Mourning Our Losses: “A space to honor and remember those who died while living or working behind bars during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The New York Times, April 19, 2021: Covid-19: Infections Among U.S. Prisoners Have Been Triple Those of Other Americans
The Marshall Project, updated May 21, 2021: A State-by-State Look at Coronavirus in Prisons
