The Hidden Cost When Covid Hits the Prison System
Former Bad Boy rapper G-Dep, currently incarcerated, maintains that he and his fellow inmates still deserve humanity
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He’s not on the mic much these days. But that doesn’t mean Trevell Coleman — once known as G-Dep, the Bad Boy-signed MC whose song “Special Delivery” electrified 2001 and spawned a hell of a remix — doesn’t have something to say. Nine years into a 15-to-life murder sentence, Coleman shares the fear and concern that Covid-19 has introduced among inmates at New York’s Elmira Correctional Facility. From inside, Coleman reveals how he found out about the virus and what the reaction has been from the inside.
Since the beginning of the year, we’d all been in our day-to-day routine: watching television, going to work, recreation, and then evening programs. The days come in and go out, with little changing on the inside.
But then one day in March, there was a buzz in the facility. We could hear people whispering about some kind of virus circulating in the outside world. At first, there was an air of disregard and skepticism and even outright disbelief. A highly contagious virus spread by…
