Submitted photo A stun fence is installed at the Trumbull Correctional Institution in 2017. TCI in Warren is among state prisons operated by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction reporting cases of COVID-19 among prisoners and staff. Only one inmate at TCI has tested positive for the virus so far, while the DRC is reporting 3,845 inmates and 358 staff members have tested positive for the coronavirus throughout its state prison system.

In prisons that are filled past capacity, inmates are so scared of contracting COVID-19 they are tying “dirty sheets” around their faces in an attempt to make their own masks in shared living quarters.

Others are afraid to report symptoms for fear of being held in isolation cells usually reserved for punishment, and some staff feel unsafe with the level of protection they and the inmates have available, a local prison worker said.

According to numbers released Saturday by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, 3,845 inmates and 358 staff members in prisons operated by the DRC have tested positive for COVID-19. About 71,000 people are in Ohio’s jails and prisons, including 50,000 in prisons alone, putting the state at 130 percent capacity, according to numbers reported by the Justice Action Network and its President and Executive Director Holly Harris.

The DRC contends the reason so many tested positive for the virus is because they dramatically increased testing, noting many of the inmates are not symptomatic.

The DRC reports 15 inmates have died from the virus and two more probably have.

And despite the release of 205 inmates ordered by Gov. Mike DeWine to curb the overcrowding in some prisons, that isn’t nearly enough, Harris said.

“We do think DeWine needs to get more aggressive. We think it will get worse before it gets better. One thing you can’t lock in a cell is a disease. Some think if it spreads in jails or prisons it will be confined there, but they don’t understand how the disease spreads. Look at the numbers: In some facilities, more corrections officers have tested positive than prisoners. It flows in and out of prison, and any hotbed will impact the community,” Harris said.

The Ohio ACLU and other groups also are calling for more prisoners to be released.

“While all release recommendations are truly welcome, this is a drop in the bucket of what is needed to mitigate the potential spread of the coronavirus throughout our prison system,” a release from the Ohio ACLU states. “We know the coronavirus spreads quickly in closed spaces like nursing homes and cruise ships. Incarceration facilities are no different. These are spaces where people eat, sleep and live in close quarters. Social distancing is impossible, and basic hygiene items are in short supply.”

Although the DRC did not fulfill a request to interview a warden at one of the prisons in the Mahoning Valley, it provided a press release with some of their actions, like manufacturing personal protective equipment through Ohio Penal Industries, authorizing prisons to make their own masks if they can find the materials, reducing meals to two per day while keeping up calorie intakes, waiving medical co-pays for inmates with flu-like symptoms and handing out information packets.

While the state prisons in the Valley — Trumbull Correctional Institution and the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center — haven’t had a major outbreak, hotbeds that have sprung up at Franklin Medical Center, Marion Correctional Institution, Pickaway Correctional Institution and the Correctional Reception Center show how quickly it can spread among staff and inmates.

One inmate at TCI and one inmate and one staff member have been infected at NOCC, the DRC said.

A person who works at a local facility and agreed to share information with the Tribune Chronicle on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his / her job still has concerns, not just for his / her own safety, but for the safe and moral treatment of the inmates during the health crisis.

According to the staff member, any inmate at the facility who is displaying symptoms of the virus is moved into the “the hole,” isolation cells where inmates are locked up for 22 hours per day usually for violating the prison rules.

When an inmate reports he is feeling ill to an officer, he is given an evaluation that lasts “45 seconds to one minute” before being put in isolation.

“The inmate is then left alone in the cell and is not cared for, as there is no nurse on site,” the prison staff member said.

The cells are in an area that is “cold, damp and severely unsanitary,” the person said.

The staff member said initially they had no access to gloves or masks, though recently they have been given masks. The person said not enough is being done to protect the inmates and officers.

“They aren’t great masks, but better than nothing,” the person said, adding he / she have seen inmates tie “dirty sheets” around their faces “in terror of this extremely contagious disease.”

The staff member fears there is no real plan for how to handle the outbreak.

“There is currently no plan for an outbreak, and inmates are now going to hide their symptoms simply to not be locked up in segregation — and that itself is almost guaranteed to cause unnecessary deaths, whether it be an inmate or an employee. Extreme measures need to implemented at (the facility) in order to ease, or hopefully stop, the spread of COVID-19,” the staff member said.

Harris said inmates and staff members deserve better and understandably are uncomfortable reporting to work where they can’t socailly distance and are at a higher risk of infection.

“At some point, we will see the consequences of our bad policies, our decision to pack prisons full of sick people with addiction and mental health issues, and it is really, really scary,” Harris said.

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