Slaughtered by a wave of coronavirus infections and deaths, US jails and state prison systems have resorted to a drastic strategy to keep the virus under control: shut down completely and transfer their prisoners elsewhere.
From California to Missouri and Pennsylvania, state and local officials say so many guards have fallen ill with the virus and are unable to work that abruptly closing some correctional facilities is the only way to keep the community and prisoners safe.
Experts say the consequences are easy to predict: the prisons and prisons that remain open are likely to become even more crowded, unhygienic and disease-infested, and the transfers are likely to help the virus proliferate both inside and outside the walls.
“The movement of people is dangerous,” said Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, who has been tracking coronavirus cases in correctional institutions. “We have really good examples of overcrowding that equates to more infection and a higher risk of an outbreak. We have a lot of evidence that even transferring people from one facility to another is very dangerous. “
There were more than 480,000 confirmed coronavirus infections and at least 2,100 deaths among inmates and guards in prisons, jails and detention centers across the country, according to a New York Times database.
Among these dismal statistics are the nearly 100,000 correctional officers who tested positive and 170 who died.
Early in the pandemic, some states tried to prevent virus outbreaks by releasing some offenders earlier and arresting fewer people awaiting trial to reduce their populations, but these efforts often met with resistance from politicians and the public.
More recently, with the increase in prisons in many areas, prison populations have returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to data collected by the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York-based nonprofit research and policy group.
This fact, combined with widespread infections among correctional officers, a shortage of personnel that dates back many years and tensions in prison medical facilities, pushed states as the pandemic progressed towards more concentration and agglomeration, rather than less. in part by closing overloaded facilities.
In late November and early December, for example, North Carolina prison officials closed the Randolph Correctional Center in Asheboro along with three minimum security facilities and did not rule out further closures.
“It looks like we are holding this with gum and tape,” Todd Ishee, the state prison commissioner, said in a recent interview. “In fact, we are all in the same boat. It is a challenge for our community. It is a challenge to the prison systems in the north, south, east and west. “
Wisconsin closed a cell block at its Waupun prison and began moving its 220 inmates to other prisons, despite warnings that transfers from similar prisons elsewhere have sown deadly outbreaks, including at San Quentin State 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 a third of Waupun’s guards have been infected since the start of the pandemic, according to state data.
In Missouri, Howard and Pike counties closed their prisons. In a concise Facebook post, the Howard County sheriff’s office wrote: “The prison is temporarily closed due to a lack of staff due to illness. All detainees are currently being housed in Cooper County. “
Matt Oller, the sheriff of Audrain County, said he had accepted about two dozen inmates from Pike County, and would not have agreed to do so had he not been confident that he could guarantee some social detachment and adequate cleanliness in his prison.
“It is a place where there are many people in one place at the same time,” he said. “Any infectious disease is a concern in a prison environment.”
Elsewhere, authorities have so far rejected closing prisons, but have taken radical steps to try to keep pace with a virus that spread through prisons at lightning speed.
Ohio and New Hampshire called on the National Guard to reinforce the reduced correctional team. Michigan transferred hundreds of prisoners to its prison system as the number of employees decreased, despite infection rates in the prison system doubling over the past month, according to data from The Times.
According to union officials, teachers and nurses who were once a rare interim resource are increasingly used by the federal prison system to fill vacancies caused by illness and a series of early retirements among veteran officials, according to union officials. .
Analysts say the root of the problem lies in mass incarceration, especially in rural areas, where most closures are taking place.
While advocacy groups have pressured states to reduce levels of incarceration and close prisons for years – with limited success – some believe that the continuing wave of closures caused by the coronavirus can trigger more permanent changes.
“One of the really obvious things that needs to happen is that fewer people need to be arrested, and now is the time to make some of those changes,” said Jacob Kang-Brown, senior associate researcher at Vera. “The burden of Covid-19 is already very high in prisons and jails, and the continued transfer of people between facilities is spreading and causing further outbreaks. It is really worrying. “
Prison officers also point to low pay, dangerous conditions and a lack of institutional support as disadvantages in attracting qualified candidates – and, ultimately, bringing the number of staff to appropriate levels.
In some states, prison officers earn less than $ 12.50 an hour – not much more than fast food workers – and many lack extensive protection or employment benefits.
North Carolina, which on December 31 had more than 8,000 infections and 36 deaths of inmates and guards in its prison system, is under an order from the state court to test staff members every two weeks and ensure that prisoners are only transferred after they have been tested. Many of the transfers occurred because the facility is being closed.
The state prison system has in recent months been one of the hardest hit by disease in the country. It is also one of several states that have granted relatively few early releases since the pandemic began in March.
Ardis Watkins, executive director of the North Carolina State Employees Association, the union representing state prison officials, said the virus had hit the prison guards community – bringing not only disease and death, but also bad omens.
Closing the prison and the subsequent transfers of prisoners, she said, were like “pouring gas on the fire”.
“They are terrified. They realize that when they go to work, they may not come home at the end of the day, ”said Watkins. “The nature of the job is: ‘anything can happen, including being killed’. But what they are not used to is knowing that going to work can mean that their family can catch a disease from which they can die ”.
Ms. Watkins said that the risks taken by prison officers are not understood by the public.
“People don’t see the prison system. They don’t think about it, ”she said. “In this pandemic, work done in such a dangerous way is not being valued,” she added. “So this frustration is growing. They seem, as always, they have been forgotten and left behind. “
Ishee, who oversees North Carolina prisons, agrees that the risks taken by the guards were considerable.
“Men and women who work in our country’s prisons have a very dangerous and difficult job to start,” he said. “This virus now poses a direct threat to their health and the health of their families.”
Virginia Little, whose son, Marvin Little, was transferred between North Carolina prisons – including one whose minimum security facility the state temporarily closed due to staff shortages – said the prison system does not appear to have taken sufficient security precautions during transfers .
“He’s scared, and I’m scared for him,” said Little of his 50-year-old son, who is incarcerated at the Johnston Correctional Institution in Smithfield. “At one point in time, when they were transferred, they had to close the facility where it is now, and they were all sent to Correctional South in Tróia. So I think after they fumigated all – everything they needed to do – they were sent back to Johnston. “
Robert Thomas Jr., whose 59-year-old father is incarcerated at the Neuse Correctional Center in Goldsboro, NC, said he believed the prison system was negligent in its transfer policies.
Her father, Robert Thomas Sr., was infected with the coronavirus this spring, when prisons were closed and hundreds of prisoners were put on buses to different facilities.
“They are transferring inmates all the time,” he said. “I know many inmates, they are transferred – and a few days after they get there, they go to the hospital with coronavirus. They had before they even entered. “
Her father, a former diabetic marine with high blood pressure and heart disease, survived the virus. But after he recovered, said Thomas Sr., he was transferred two more times. He is now in Neuse prison, where about 500 inmates fell ill and three died of the virus.
“Death is permanent,” said Thomas Sr .. “And I was not ready to go.”
Izzy Colón, Ann Hinga Klein, Libby Seline, Maura Turcotte and Timothy Williams contributed reports.