Apr 2, 2020 4 min read

State prisons now have six confirmed cases of COVID-19, two of whom are inmates at SCI-Phoenix, Montgomery County, and four are staff members at an undisclosed location, according to Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel. He declined to identify at which prison the four staff members work during a press conference call Wednesday morning.

After the first inmate case was reported Sunday, Wetzel announced a statewide inmate quarantine, which includes the State Correctional Institution at Greene County. The second case was determined COVID-19 positive Tuesday night, he said.

“We’re in a total systems quarantine, which means limited movement,” Wetzel said during the press conference. “We’re trying to maintain social distancing in the places that we can.”

The quarantine means inmates will be fed in their cells, and they will be afforded out-of-cell time for video visits, phone calls, access to the law library, as well as being provided with in-cell programming. All inmate movement will be controlled to conform to social distancing recommendations.

“We realize this is an inconvenience for staff and the inmates, but again, we are doing this to protect everyone’s well-being,” Wetzel said in Sunday’s news release.

All inmates entering the prison system will be quarantined for 14 days at SCI Retreat, which will be the “reception facility,” used for quarantine purposes. He said they have “testing infrastructure,” and are using the same testing criteria as the rest of the community, but with enhanced screening.

“It was the easiest place to do that because it was almost empty,” Wetzel said. “It gave us the opportunity to house people and have 14 different quarantine areas and ensure social distancing.”

On Wednesday, Wetzel said all staff members statewide coming on shift are being screened with temperatures taken. He said that two weeks ago they mandated all staff wear cloth masks.

The Department of Corrections houses nearly 44,500 inmates in 25 state prisons, including SCI-Greene, which housed 1,794 inmates as of Wednesday. One of the priorities, Wetzel said, is to reduce the prison population. In March, the statewide population decreased by 574, he said.

“I would anticipate more in the coming months. I just don’t know how much more,” he said. “There’s no specific target number at this point.”

Part of the reason for the decrease is due to the courts being closed, reducing the number of incoming commitments, Wetzel said. He said they’re also trying to maximize parole opportunities, targeting people who have passed their minimum time served.

He said inmates with pre-existing health conditions or immunocompromised, who may be a greater risk of contracting the virus, are also a priority for potential release.

“Early on, we established a list, and our number at that time was 12,000 out of 44,500 people who would be vulnerable based on the CDC’s information,” Wetzel said.

He said when it comes to early release, they “have to put some guardrails on it.” They have to consider housing, employment and access to health care, medication and treatment for those people. Before the pandemic began, Wetzel said they had employer roundtables set up for their reentry programs.

“Now our reentry is completely different,” he said. “Most people who get out of prison … they hop on a bus and go back home. But with most of the transportation and bus companies shut down, we’re creating our own transportation network to take releases home.”

Statewide, Wetzel said the prisons are offering telepsychiatry and peer specialists for mental health services for inmates. He said they also have received positive feedback from them about the use of Zoom video conferencing for visitation.

“That’s been pretty popular,” he said. “There have been 450 Zoom visits a day. Most are wondering if we’ll keep this after the emergency.”

Like anywhere else, Wetzel said there’s “a lot of angst,” within their facilities, so the facility superintendents are offering as much information as possible to inmates, who often are worried about their families in the community.

“We’ve received feedback that they understand and appreciate the steps we’re taking,” Wetzel said. “Even our negative incidents in the facilities are going down. Everyone’s just trying to get through this.”