The mistakes of correctional facilities handling state jail releases are fueling fears in some California counties that thousands of inmates eligible for early release will spread the coronavirus in their communities.
Statewide, county probation officials and others on the front lines of the release of up to 8,000 inmates in late August have complained that the prisoners were recently released with little notification to local authorities and without transportation adequate or quarantined housing, and in some cases, there is no clear indication that they are virus free.
County officials have also voiced alarm about the potentially infected inmates who were released and allowed to travel on public transportation and mix with the public.
“We have done everything we can to contain the virus, but they are not helping,” said Richard Egan, Lassen County Administrative Officer, referring to corrections officials who claim they “dumped” potentially contagious inmates there before establishing a regime. quarantine.
In a July 20 letter, Barbara Longo, Lassen County Director of Health and Social Services, asked the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to test and isolate inmates for 14 days before releasing them. She cited the case of a recently released inmate, who visited another released prisoner while she was quarantined at a local hotel.
“We don’t know how many times he left his room to go out,” he wrote. “However, her 2 tests came back positive 10 days after her release.”
Local officials’ concerns stem in part from the unfortunate transfer in late May of 121 inmates from a virus-crowned prison in Chino to San Quentin, triggering an outbreak that killed at least 19 inmates and sickened more 2,000 more.
Some Chino inmates were cleared for the move based on one-month-old test results that were useless, leading to a tightening of test protocols that came too late for many.
COVID-19 has murdered at least 47 inmates, as more than two-thirds of California’s 35 state prisons have been affected. The system had logged 8,039 cases on Thursday, when the active infection count was 1,399.
Earlier this month, Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to alleviate the outbreak by releasing up to 8,000 inmates and further reducing the population by approximately 10,000 through late admissions.
So far, the state has released 246 inmates listed as “active” COVID-19 cases.
They include Michael Kirkpatrick, 62, who was deemed suitable for parole and was awaiting final approval when he was released from San Quentin on July 13 and taken to a downtown San Francisco hotel to be quarantined with other inmates. recently released.
Kirkpatrick said they all stayed in their individual rooms during their isolation, but few did. Some were walking through San Francisco while waiting for the results of the COVID-19 tests taken the day they were released.
“The only time you were supposed to go out was when there was a knock on your door and they brought you food,” he said. “But you have boys who have just been released from prison and want their freedom. The person at the reception is not going to tell you not to go anywhere. “
Kirkpatrick, who has since moved into transitional housing, said he only learned of his test results when he registered with a probation officer. Meanwhile, he said, he didn’t receive as much as a temperature check during the quarantine, so he and a couple of other former inmates went to the county public health office and were tested.
“None of us knew anything, and it was generating a lot of stress,” he said. “We didn’t know anything and nobody contacted us.”
They all tested negative, he said.
Joe Anderson was released early from the California Institution for Men in April after serving a fraud sentence. Anderson, 32, said he left when the coronavirus spread “like a forest fire” through the Chino prison.
“They checked my temperature and that was it,” he said, recalling that he traveled to Sacramento with the mother and sister of another inmate and was then taken to Mendocino County.
He visited a Dollar Tree and a Wal-Mart before being called up by the county health department for a coronavirus test five days after his arrival, he said.
The test came back positive, and Anderson said the probation department immediately politely but severely asked him to take a free room at the local Best Western for 14 days. He was asymptomatic, but could have been spreading the disease without knowing it.
“I wonder how many people let go like me,” he said.
Corrections officials have not explained the flawed tests in Chinese or other specific issues related to early deliveries, but instead pointed to steps they have taken to prevent recurrences.
Newly established protocols now require testing to be conducted no more than seven days before launch.
According to the corrections department, those who test positive will be isolated and held in prison until they are no longer contagious. An inmate’s case is considered resolved once at least five days have passed after the fever has disappeared without temperature-reducing medications, and at least 14 days after a positive diagnosis is made.
Corrections officials said quarantined early-release inmates are referred to Project Hope, a voluntary initiative that provides free hotel rooms and food. Those who refuse to participate, or do not obtain special permission to be released in a private residence, will remain in prison for the 14-day period, authorities said.
The increasing number of accelerated releases, combined with the closure of programs due to the virus, has changed the way local authorities deal with newly released prisoners.
“We are reinventing how reentry works,” said Alameda County Chief Probation Officer Wendy Still. “That is what we see being built in an ad hoc manner.”
Still, whose department is one of the best-funded and most progressive in the state, he said that despite early problems, it now has a system to quarantine early departures for 14 days at local hotels; those who comply will have the time deducted from the end of their trial period.
Despite the “good intentions of the state,” he said, his department assumes that everyone who gets out of prison is potentially positive for the virus due to the intervals between testing and release.
“There is no guarantee that if you get tested one day, you will not test positive the next,” Still said.
Your staff must wear full protective gear with each new launch, and you are largely communicating with those launched by phone or the internet. Simple tasks, such as picking someone up from prison, have become expensive and complicated, as individual probation officers sometimes have to make decisions on the fly about security.
“It is stressful,” Still said. “They are a peace officer, so they have sworn to protect, but they are also human, so they have concerns not only for themselves but for their families.”
Probation departments in particular have been hit hard, as most of those released from state jails are being sent to county supervision. Although the state recently provided $ 15 million in housing aid, many departments are overburdened by high volume.
Lonnie Reyman, chief parole officer for Del Norte County in the northwest corner of the state, said his agency has been “forced to fight” as people are released without notice and sometimes without housing or services. .
In small counties like yours, there are few nonprofits or outside agencies to help them, letting probation departments take care of social service tasks, including finding a home, job placement, and now even delivery food. Reyman is not sure how much help his office will be able to provide.
“That just cuts to the knees any plan to reintegrate the people they leave,” he said.
Reyman said his department has seen about seven launches so far and hopes that there will be many in the coming months, which are “huge numbers for us.”
“This is a group of people that we would expect to exceed in the next six to 12 months, and they will all be out in the next few weeks,” Reyman said. “The plan is changing on a daily basis.”
Karen McDaniel, founder of Fighting for Families Impacted by Encarceration, which offers transportation home and other aid to those released, said her organization has been overwhelmed by the need for its services.
Recently, he helped move people from the Wasco State Prison in Kern County after the facility released about 60 people for two days. McDaniel said prison officials suggested that the men use Amtrak for transportation.
“Why in the world would you even consider leaving any number of people previously incarcerated at Amtrak right now?” she said. What are you thinking about? I had to mobilize tons of drivers to get out and take them home because we don’t want them on public transport. ”
She said she is frustrated that the corrections department has not provided funds or resources for organizations like her own, which form critical links in the reentry process.
“It is tremendous pressure,” said McDaniel. “We shouldn’t be in full charge of the state of California to bring all these launches home. It really is downright amazing. “
Corrections officials said inmates released to “quarantine status” cannot take public transportation. But some who are not in quarantine wonder if they should be.
On Thursday afternoon, Rod Thompson Sr. sat at the Amtrak station in the rural town of Hanford waiting for the 12:24 train to Bakersfield, hours after he was released from Avenal State Prison in Kings County.
From there, he planned to catch a bus to Los Angeles, and hoped that he could contact his probation officer before closing to see if a quarantined hotel was possible.
Although Thompson tested positive for COVID-19 in May, suffering only from mild symptoms, he was unsure if he still carried the virus and did not want to infect others in the shared housing that was his other option.
“I want to be quarantined again just to be safe,” he said. “I have a place to reside … but I don’t feel comfortable going there right now because I don’t know if I’m contagious.”
