Up to eight women are sharing a single cell at the La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo, Colorado.
Social distancing, anyone?
Of Colorado’s 20,000 adult prison inmates, about 4,000 are over 60 years old. Thousands more are housed in county jails, and many of those in county jails are awaiting trial and have never been convicted of a crime.
According to the Colorado Sun, three staff members of the Colorado Department of Corrections have tested positive for the novel coronavirus as of March 27, including a staff member at the Sterling Correctional Facility, a parole officer in the Sterling area, and a staff member who works at the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center. A Denver Sheriff’s Department employee who works at the county jail has tested positive, as well as an Arapahoe County sheriff’s deputy.
Such correctional staffers and law enforcement personnel live outside the prison walls, and presumably can be exposed to ‘community transmission’ during the current pandemic — but they enter prisons and jails regularly to perform their duties.
Once COVID-19 finds its way inside a prison or jail, how do you stop its spread?
From the Colorado Sun:
An inmate at the Denver jail has tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, and the jail and prison population across the state is considered vulnerable.
“The introduction of COVID-19 into the corrections system could have devastating results…” said Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) executive director Dean Williams in a news release last week.
Devastating for the inmates and staff.
Devastating for the government.
Federal court cases over the past several decades have made it clear that a correctional facility has a responsibility to keep its inmates safe and healthy while they are incarcerated. Failure to do so has cost state governments and county governments millions of dollars in lawsuit settlements.
According to the Colorado Sun article, a recently released survey conducted by the US Conference of Mayors revealed that more than 85% of the cities assessed do not have sufficient personal protective equipment… test kits… or ventilators. We can easily assume that correctional facilities are even more poorly equipped.
The Denver Post reported yesterday that 52 Colorado prisoners were granted early release last week, and hundreds more could be eligible as the state’s prison system creates more space to better prevent and treat the coronavirus.
Dean Williams, Corrections Executive Director, was quoted in the Denver Post article as saying the department “will need to release at least 10 times that number” in order to implement its “coronavirus prevention strategy”. The department hopes to convert the currently-vacant Centennial Correctional Facility-South into a place where new inmates can be quarantined for 14 days before transferring to other locations. But the department doesn’t currently have sufficient staff to operate such a facility.
At the Rikers Island jail system in New York City, where more than 5,000 inmates are incarcerated, a coronavirus outbreak led city officials to release non-violent, elderly inmates. California has reportedly released more than 3,500 prisoners, in response to dangers posed by the pandemic. US Attorney General William Barr has urged the early release of inmates at federal prisons.
It’s been nearly a month since ACLU Colorado sent a letter to Colorado Governor Jared Polis, warning of a dire outcome if Colorado jails and prisons do nothing to avert the impending health crisis.
“Without immediate and bold action, Colorado’s prisons and jails may well become the epicenter for the broad community spread of COVID-19… by definition, they are crowded, highly populated environments. While Governor Polis has urged a limit to public gatherings of more than 50 people, the vast majority of Colorado’s 57 jails and 23 prisons house far more than 50 inmates and staff on any given day. For example, the Sterling Correctional facility holds close to 2,500 inmates and Denver County Jail holds about 2,000. In these facilities, staff and inmates have close and daily contact, and inmates literally sleep, eat, and use the toilet within a few feet of one another. In these circumstances, social distancing is literally impossible…”
Archuleta County currently houses its inmates — those serving sentences, and those awaiting trial — at the La Plata County Jail. According to the Pine River Times:
La Plata County Jail is crowded, just the kind of environment public health officials and governments have been warning against for almost a week in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus causing COVID-19. Local judges, attorneys and law enforcement have collaborated in the past week to reduce the number of people incarcerated in La Plata County, according to interviews with agency leaders.
The population at the jail shrank from 201 on Monday to 176 on Wednesday as officials worked to identify and release at-risk inmates who pose a low risk to the community, said jail Capt. Ed Aber.
The 6th Judicial District Attorney’s Office is requesting police officers and deputies to issue summons for drug offenses and low-level felonies, as long as individuals “do not pose a risk to the public”.
State law, however, requires the arrest of persons accused of domestic violence. We have to wonder how that law will play out, in a situation where so many couples are now spending close to 100 percent of their time together, in the same (confining?) space…