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Oklahoma s Skills Centers offer educational programs designed to keep the prison gate from becoming a revolving door and give hope to students transitioning
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COVID-19 built new walls that further isolated Oklahoma’s prisoners from the rest of the world.
It started last March. The Department of Corrections turned away visitors. Prisoners began losing access to outdoor space and they could no longer go to classes and common areas. The changes were safety precautions.
Se’Nae Starnes has young children and before the pandemic she was already limited to seeing them on the weekends. She says when COVID-19 hit even that was taken away.
“Like, my daughter especially, she’s not able to write and read and be able to communicate that way,” Starnes said. “So we have to be creative and draw pictures because we weren’t always able to get to the phone.”
Visitors returning as COVID-19 cases decline in state prisons By: Keaton Ross Oklahoma Watch May 11, 2021
Inmates gather in a common area outside of their cells at Joseph Harp Correctional Center in Lexington. (Photo by Whitney Bryen/Oklahoma Watch)
Visitors are coming back to state prisons and reuniting with loved ones, in many cases for the first time in more than a year, as COVID-19 cases in Oklahoma’s corrections system steadily decline.
Volunteers who lead religious services and skills-based classes are also set to return later this month.
The Department of Corrections closed facilities to visitors last March after health officials warned of COVID-19 community spread. The agency reinstated family visitation with restrictions in late May 2020 but shut it down again in September after mass outbreaks at several prisons.
The OU Carceral Studies Consortium announced Wednesday it donated 130 books to an Oklahoma women’s correctional facility struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.