Darcy Vargas says it felt like an early Christmas present when her son Gerald made parole in early December after serving more than a year in the Texas prison system for a drug charge. Once he completed a six month rehabilitation program, a requirement for his release that was set by the state parole board, Gerald would get to go home. “We were so excited thinking he’d be out by summer,” Vargas told me. “We’ve got a job waiting for him and everything.”
But that excitement eventually turned to frustration. While the parole board approved Gerald’s release in December, prison officials said he couldn’t start his required rehab program until February of 2020 at the earliest. In March, he was approved to be transferred to another facility where he could begin the six-month release process, but then COVID-19 hit, upending Texas prisons and halting both visitations and most inmate transfers. The Sanchez State jail in El Paso, where Gerald is currently housed, has been on lockdown for more than a month after inmates and staff tested positive for the virus. Then, in late April, officials told Vargas that her son would have to wait to start his program.
“He sounds so frustrated and that makes me so worried,” Darcy told me. “That’s a tough place to be anyway, but now they’ve been on lockdown for so long that tempers are starting to rise.”
