(Editor’s note: This report was written in summer, 2020)

My name is Rufus Poindexter. I am an inmate of the Arkansas Department of Corrections, better known as the ADC. I have been incarcerated since December 26, 2006, when I was 16, for a bank robbery and a shooting against the Little Rock Police Department with three other men. I was shot once in my lower thigh. I was convicted of all charges and given 28 years in the ADC under the 70% law. My parole date is 2026 and my flat date is 2034. 

I was sent to Cummins Unit from another prison to complete a substance abuse treatment program that lasts for six months. Some inmates take the course to enter work release or for re-entry inquiries. And others — most who have drug charges — are stipulated to take it before going home. 

They declared Phase 1 lockdown on Cummins Unit Prison on April 8, 2020, due to a coronavirus outbreak. It was rumored that one inmate came into the unit on a transfer and was positive for COVID-19. The administration accidentally let that inmate out from a cell, and that is how the whole population ended up contracting the virus. Or at least that’s what it seemed like. (My entire pod was tested a couple of weeks later, and my test was negative.)

The pandemic at the Cummins Unit was terrible for inmates and officers because the inmates were not allowed out into the halls, nor could they report to their work duties. (Except for one unit, and they were banned from having any contact with the main prison.) Our food trays were being brought to us 15 hours apart. Some dinners were served at 6 a.m. Our commissary was out of stock for nearly two months, when we used to be able to make $100 orders. During Phase 1, between 15 and 20 inmates with COVID-19 died. Now we are going back into lockdown because of a rise in cases in the Arkansas Prison. 

Phase 2 will begin at the end of June 2020. Things have returned to normal because of warden changes, social distancing and training for the inmate population on how to survive the outbreak in the prison.

Hopefully, Phase 2 will be managed differently, given the lack of concern from officers and other staff in charge.

Close window X

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Prison Journalism Project is happy to share our writers and reporters’ stories with your print and online audiences. You are free to republish them under a Creative Commons license unless otherwise noted on the page. You can use the URL or copy and paste the story into your CMS.

Here are our ground rules:

• You must credit Prison Journalism Project. In the byline, we prefer “[Author Name], Prison Journalism Project.” At the top of the text of your story, please include a line that says: “This story was originally published by Prison Journalism Project” and include a link to the article.
• No republishing of photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
• No editing the content, including the headline, except to reflect changes in time, location and editorial style. For example, changing, “today” to “last week,” or San Quentin to San Quentin, California. You can also make minor revisions for style or headline size, and you can trim stories for space. You must also retain all original hyperlinks, including links to the Prison Journalism Project newsletters.
• No translation of our stories into another language without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
• No selling ads against our stories, but you can publish it on a page with ads that you’ve already sold.
• No reselling or syndicating our stories, including on platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. You also can’t republish our work automatically or all at once. Please select them individually.
• No scraping our website or using our stories to populate websites designed to improve search rankings or gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
• Any site our stories appear on must have a prominent and effective way to contact you.
• If we send you a request to remove our story, you must do so immediately.
• If you share republished stories on social media, please tag Prison Journalism Project. We have official accounts on Twitter (@prisonjourn), Facebook (@prisonjournalism), Instagram (@prisonjournalism) and Linked In.
• Let us know when you share the story. Send us a note, so we can keep track.

Dinner at 6 a.m.: COVID-19 Lockdown at Cummins Unit, Arkansas

by Rufus Poindexter Jr., Prison Journalism Project
February 13, 2021

<h1>Dinner at 6 a.m.: COVID-19 Lockdown at Cummins Unit, Arkansas</h1> <p class="byline">by Rufus Poindexter Jr., Prison Journalism Project <br />February 13, 2021</p> <p><em>(Editor’s note: This report was written in summer, 2020)</em></p> <p>My name is Rufus Poindexter. I am an inmate of the Arkansas Department of Corrections, better known as the ADC. I have been incarcerated since December 26, 2006, when I was 16, for a bank robbery and a shooting against the Little Rock Police Department with three other men. I was shot once in my lower thigh. I was convicted of all charges and given 28 years in the ADC under the <a href="http://www.arkansas.gov/asc/pdfs/FAQ.pdf"><span style="text-decoration:underline">70% law</span></a>. My parole date is 2026 and my flat date is 2034. </p> <p>I was sent to Cummins Unit from another prison to complete a substance abuse treatment program that lasts for six months. Some inmates take the course to enter work release or for re-entry inquiries. And others — most who have drug charges — are stipulated to take it before going home. </p> <p>They declared Phase 1 lockdown on Cummins Unit Prison on April 8, 2020, due to a coronavirus outbreak. It was rumored that one inmate came into the unit on a transfer and was positive for COVID-19. The administration accidentally let that inmate out from a cell, and that is how the whole population ended up contracting the virus. Or at least that’s what it seemed like. (My entire pod was tested a couple of weeks later, and my test was negative.)</p> <p>The pandemic at the Cummins Unit was terrible for inmates and officers because the inmates were not allowed out into the halls, nor could they report to their work duties. (Except for one unit, and they were banned from having any contact with the main prison.) Our food trays were being brought to us 15 hours apart. Some dinners were served at 6 a.m. Our commissary was out of stock for nearly two months, when we used to be able to make $100 orders. During Phase 1, between 15 and 20 inmates with COVID-19 died. Now we are going back into lockdown because of a rise in cases in the Arkansas Prison. </p> <p>Phase 2 will begin at the end of June 2020. Things have returned to normal because of warden changes, social distancing and training for the inmate population on how to survive the outbreak in the prison.</p> <p>Hopefully, Phase 2 will be managed differently, given the lack of concern from officers and other staff in charge.</p> <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/2021/02/13/dinner-at-6-am-covid-19-lockdown-at-cummins-unit-arkansas/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org">Prison Journalism Project</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/prisonjournalismproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/cropped-PJP-favicon-2.png?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=896&ga=" style="width:1px;height:1px;"></p>

1