Local prisons and state prison systems across the United States have pursued a drastic strategy to keep the virus at risk as they succumb to a spate of coronavirus infections and deaths: shutting down their inmates altogether and transporting their inmates to others.
From California to Missouri to Pennsylvania, state and local officials say so many guards have become ill with the virus and are unable to work. This is the only way to suddenly shut down community safety and prisoner safety.
Experts believe the outage is easy to predict: the prisons and jails that remain open are likely to be even more crowded, unhygienic and disease-ridden, and the transmissions are likely to help spread the virus inside and outside the walls.
“Movement in humans is dangerous,” said Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine who monitored coronavirus cases in correctional facilities. ‘We have seen good examples of overpopulation leading to more infection and greater risk of outbreak. We have a lot of evidence that it is very dangerous to move people from one facility to the next. “
According to a New York Times database, there were more than 480,000 confirmed coronavirus infections and at least 2,100 deaths among inmates and guards in prisons, prisons and detention centers.
Among the dismal statistics are the nearly 100,000 correctional officers who tested positive and 170 who died.
Early in the pandemic, some states tried to ward off virus outbreaks by releasing some offenders early and detaining fewer people awaiting trial to reduce their population, but these efforts often met with resistance from politicians and the public.
More recently, as arrests have increased in many areas, the prison population has returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to data collected by the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit research and policy group in New York.
This fact, combined with widespread infections among correctional officers, staff shortages stretching for years and obstructing medical facilities in prison, has pushed the countries as the pandemic progresses towards more concentration and repression, rather than less, in part through the closure of strained facilities.
In late November and early December, North Carolina prison officials closed the Randolph Correctional Center in Asheboro along with three minimum security facilities and no longer closed.
“It feels like we’re sticking with bubble gum and packaging tape,” State Commissioner of Prisons Todd Ishee said in a recent interview. ‘Really, we’re all in the same boat. It challenges our community. It challenges prison systems north, south, east and west. ”
Wisconsin closed a cell block in its Waupun prison and began moving its 220 inmates to other prisons, despite warnings that similar prison transfers had spawned deadly outbreaks elsewhere, including at San Quentin Prison in California.
Infections and deaths in the prison system have more than doubled since the beginning of November, according to a New York Times analysis of state data.
More than one-third of Waupun’s guards have been infected since the start of the pandemic, according to state data.
In Missouri, Howard and Pike County are closing their prisons. The Sheriff’s Office of Howard County wrote in a brief Facebook post: ‘The prison has been temporarily closed due to a shortage of staff due to illness. All inmates are currently housed in Cooper County. ”
Audrain County Sheriff Matt Oller said he had accepted about two dozen Pike County inmates, and would not agree if he did not have confidence that he had some social distance and adequate cleaning in his jail would not be able to insure.
“It’s a place where a lot of people are in one place at a time,” he said. An infectious disease is a source of concern in prison. ‘
Elsewhere, authorities have so far rejected jail closures, but have taken comprehensive measures to keep up with a virus that has moved through prisons at lightning speed.
Ohio and New Hampshire each called in the national guard to reinforce dilute correctional personnel. Michigan has transferred hundreds of inmates to its prison system as staff numbers have dropped, despite infection rates in the prison system doubling in the past month, according to The Times data.
According to union officials, the federal prison system is increasingly being relied upon by teachers and nurses, who used to be a rare stopgap source, to fill staff gaps caused by both illnesses and a result of early retirement among veteran officials, according to union officials.
Analysts believe the root of the problem lies in mass confinement, especially in rural areas, where most closures occur.
While advocacy groups have been pushing states to reduce prison sentences for years and close prisons – with limited success – some believe the ongoing wave of coronavirus-induced closures could cause more permanent change.
“One of the really obvious things that needs to happen is that fewer people need to be locked up, and it’s time to make some of the changes,” said Jacob Kang-Brown, senior research fellow at Vera. ‘The burden of Covid-19 was all too high in prisons and jails and the constant transport of people between facilities spread and caused further outbreaks. This is really worrying. ”
Correctional officials also point to low wages, dangerous conditions and a lack of institutional support as disadvantages to attracting qualified candidates – and ultimately bringing staff numbers to adequate levels.
In some states, correctional officers earn less than $ 12.50 an hour – not much more than fast food workers – and many do not have broad job protection or benefits.
North Carolina, which had more than 8,000 infections and 36 deaths of inmates and guards in its prison system as of Dec. 31, is under a state court order to test staff members every two weeks and to ensure that inmates are only transferred after being tested. . Many of the transfers took place because facilities were being closed.
The state prison system has been one of the hardest hit by the disease in recent months. It is also one of a number of states that have granted relatively few early releases since the start of the pandemic in March.
Ardis Watkins, executive director of the North Carolina State Employees Association, the union representing state correctional officers, said the virus had overwhelmed the community of jailers – not just illness and death, but also prejudice.
The closure of the prison and the subsequent transfers of prisoners, she said, were like throwing petrol on a fire.
“They are terrified. “They realize that when they go to work, they may not come home at the end of the day,” she said. Watkins said. The nature of the work is: ‘anything can happen, including being killed’. But what they are not used to is knowing that work can mean that their family can get a disease from which they can die. ‘
Ms Watkins said the public does not understand the risks that correctional officers take.
‘People do not see the prison system. They are not thinking about it, “she said. “In this pandemic, the work that is being done so dangerously is not appreciated,” she added. “The frustration is increasing. They feel as usual that they are forgotten and left behind. ‘
Mr. Ishee, who oversees the prisons in North Carolina, agrees that the dangers posed by the guards were significant.
“Men and women working in prisons across our country have a very dangerous and difficult task to begin with,” he said. “This virus now poses a direct threat to their health and the health of their families.”
Virginia Little, whose son Marvin Little has been transferred between prisons in North Carolina – including one whose state temporarily closed the minimum security facility due to a shortage of staff – said the prison system apparently did not take adequate security measures during transfers not. .
“He’s scared, and I’m scared of him,” Little said of her 50-year-old son, who is incarcerated at the Johnston Correctional Institution in Smithfield. ‘At one point when they were relocated, they had to close the facility where he is now, and they were all sent to Southern Correctional in Troy. So I think after robbing everything – whatever they had to do – they were sent back to Johnston. ‘
Robert Thomas Jr., whose 59-year-old father is locked up in the Nose Correctional Facility in Goldsboro, NC, said he believes the prison system was negligent in its transfer policy.
His father, Robert Thomas Sr., was infected with the coronavirus this spring because prisons were closed and hundreds of prisoners were put on buses to various facilities.
“They were transferring prisoners all the time,” he said. ‘I know a lot of prisoners, they are being transferred – and a few days after they get there, they go to the hospital with the coronavirus. They still had it before they entered. ”
His father, a former Marine who has diabetes and has high blood pressure and heart disease, survived the virus. But after recovering, Mr. Thomas Sr., he was transferred twice more. He is now in the Nose Prison, where nearly 500 inmates are ill and three have died from the virus.
“Death is permanent,” he said. Thomas Sr. “And I was not ready to go.”
Izzy Colón, Ann Hinga Klein, Libby Seline, Maura Turcotte and Timothy Williams contribution made.