Brian Moran discusses DOC prisoner releases during pandemic
Ten inmates and two corrections officers at Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville have tested positive for COVID-19, but four other regional jails in central Virginia that hold prisoners from 18 localities remain virus-free, authorities said.
Riverside Regional Jail in Prince George County; Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover County; the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange County; and the Meherrin River Regional Jail in Alberta so far have kept the coronavirus at bay by implementing restrictive measures and conducting extensive screening of everyone who enters the jails, superintendents and spokespersons of those facilities said.
At Piedmont, where similar preventive measures are in place, only one of the 10 infected inmates has required hospitalization and another has been released by the facility’s medical department, said Superintendent Jim Davis.
Jail officials suspect an 11th inmate has contracted the virus, but that person’s test results are still pending. The outbreak began around April 12, Davis said.
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The infected inmates are placed in quarantine for 14 days. They will not return to the jail’s general population until they undergo a step-down procedure that lasts an additional seven days, Davis said.
The jail, which serves the counties of Amelia, Buckingham, Cumberland, Nottoway, Prince Edward and Lunenburg, has a rated capacity of 245 beds, but held 373 prisoners as of Thursday.
“The courts have allowed us to furlough our work-release and weekend [inmates],” Davis said. Had they remained incarcerated, the jail’s population would total about 400, he added.
“All inmates receive proper medical attention by our medical department in accordance with their medical protocol and the Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention],” Davis said.
Davis said the local health department has recommended that testing not be done on all inmates and employees unless they exhibit symptoms of the virus.
All jail staff members have been issued cloth and paper masks and are required to wear them at all times in the jail. Inmates have been issued masks that have been distributed by the Virginia Department of Corrections, Davis added.
“Officers and medical staff also are provided the N95 masks and the appropriate personal protection equipment around an infected inmate,” he said.
Pamunkey Superintendent James Willett said jail staff started implementing measures to mitigate exposure even before they were recommended by state officials and health experts. “So I think we got ahead of the curve in our efforts,” he said.
Each inmate has been issued two cloth-type masks, which are required in common areas of the facility. Jail staff are required to wear masks during interactions with inmates, Willett said.
The number of inmates at the 530-bed facility has been reduced from about 370 at the start of the pandemic to 260 on Thursday, Willett said. The jail serves the counties of Hanover and Caroline and the town of Ashland.
“We are very fortunate that our population is relatively low, and we are able to have some flexibility in our housing units,” he said.
The Central Virginia Regional Jail, which houses inmates from the counties of Louisa, Fluvanna, Orange, Madison and Greene, has also kept the virus from infiltrating the facility, said Superintendent Frank Dyer.
The jail has a bed capacity of 442 but on Thursday held 350 inmates.
“The numbers have gone down since the pandemic hit,” Dyer said. “No one has been court-ordered released early, or anything like that here at this facility. I think there’s just been less [criminal] activity.”
Riverside Regional Jail, which houses inmates from Petersburg, Hopewell, Colonial Heights and the counties of Chesterfield, Prince George, Surry and Charles City, also has managed to keep the virus out of the region’s largest corrections facility.
“There are no known cases of COVID-19 among staff or inmates at this time,” said Riverside Sgt. Viola Spratley, who noted that inmate cleaning teams have been created and are actively spraying and wiping down the facility with disinfectant.
N95 masks, in addition to cloth masks, and hand sanitizer have been issued to all Riverside staff, she said, and masks are available to inmates should they display symptoms of COVID-19 or are placed in quarantine.
The Meherrin River Regional Jail, which serves the counties of Dinwiddie, Brunswick and Mecklenburg, has also remained virus-free, said Superintendent Crystal Willett.
“We started the screening [for COVID-19] before I think even the first story came out about it being a top priority,” Willett said.
The jail added wall-mounted hand sanitizer devices outside and “we actually forwarded our screening tools to all of our law enforcement agencies that are in our localities,” she said. “If they make an arrest or a stop, they then call us ahead of time, and we screen them again before they even come into our intake section.”
The main jail in Alberta and a satellite facility in Boydton have rated capacities of 400 and 80, respectively, but they currently are holding 347 inmates, which includes 305 local and 42 federal prisoners, Willett said.
To give the jail more breathing room, the jail — in conjunction with the courts — reduced the local inmate population by about 23% through the release of offenders with fewer than 90 days to serve and temporarily furloughing other inmates in work-release programs or who serve their time on weekends, Willett said.
