How To Find Out Where An Inmate Was Transferred To
Prisoners at the California Institution for Men in Chino — habitation of the deadliest coronavirus outbreak in the state'due south prisons — were not tested for the virus for weeks before most 200 were transferred past autobus to other facilities, including ane in the Bay Area, The Chronicle has learned.
At to the lowest degree xvi of the transferred prisoners accept now tested positive for the virus, raising fears that they could spread it within facilities that for months had beaten back their own outbreaks.
Between May 28 and 29, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials transferred 66 medically vulnerable men from the Chino facility to the California State Prison, Corcoran, in an effort to spare the patients from the outbreak at Chino. On May 30, the system transferred 121 others to San Quentin State Prison, according to prison house officials.
Every bit of Mon, 15 of the men transferred to San Quentin had tested positive, also as one person transferred to Corcoran.
Prison officials on Monday said there are no other confirmed cases at San Quentin, and the recent transfers were placed in 14-twenty-four hour period quarantine upon inflow. Still, staffers and incarcerated people interviewed by The Chronicle said they are concerned the virus will spread.
"Somewhere down the line, it'south going to become inside the edifice now," said Glen Harder, 58, who is housed at San Quentin's Due north Block. "They had information technology stopped. It wasn't here at all, and of a sudden they introduced information technology from CIM correct into us."
Both San Quentin and Corcoran had reported cipher coronavirus cases among their populations until immediately afterward these transfers — with San Quentin reporting 15 cases as of Mon and Corcoran rocketing to 92.
Steve Fama, a staff chaser with the Prison Law Part, said the timing of Corcoran's outbreak was coincidental, and confirmed the prison house officials' report that only one of the patients came from CIM. The newly-arrived patients could non take transmitted the disease this quickly.
Corcoran's offset case was recorded on May 29. San Quentin's was on June one.
California's notoriously overcrowded prisons have emerged as coronavirus breeding grounds in a scattering of the state's 35 facilities, infecting more than three,000 of the total 111,000 in custody as well every bit more 400 staffers.
Civil rights advocates say it's nearly impossible to social distance behind bars, with poor ventilation systems, tight quarters, and shared spaces for eating and showering. Prison data shows the speed at which the virus can spread: There were 91 CIM cases recorded on April 30, and past May xv at that place were 475.
The contempo transfers were sparked by negotiations in a long-running federal court boxing over substandard medical intendance in California state prisons, in an effort to spare CIM's medically vulnerable patients from infection. But staffers familiar with the situation say the move was rushed and careless in execution, and has endangered the lives of thousands at facilities that for months had successfully beaten dorsum the virus.
The Chronicle interviewed 3 San Quentin employees for this story, all of whom spoke under the condition of anonymity for fright of retaliation and in accordance with The Chronicle's policy on bearding sources.
When the men were transferred they were split up up into buses, each carrying virtually 20 to 25 incarcerated people, equally well as a handful of corrections officers.
Sources told The Chronicle that 4 of the men leap for San Quentin were showing symptoms of COVID-19 earlier they got off the bus.
"As office of measures to deal with COVID-19 and protect vulnerable populations at prisons with known infections, CDCR recently transferred individuals at California Institution for Men (CIM) that were at loftier chance of infection to other prisons, including San Quentin," said prison spokesperson Dana Simas.
Simas said the men were "tested and medically evaluated before and afterwards the transfers," but declined to provide specific testing dates.
"... People being transferred out of CIM were tested at different times, depending on their housing location," she said.
A San Quentin employee familiar with the situation said some of those transferred from CIM had not been tested since May one, and others were tested on May 6. The nearly contempo testing was performed on May 12, more than two weeks before the first transfers.
The other 2 employees confirmed this account, saying that the transfers were made upwardly to 30 days since some of the patients' terminal tests.
As of Monday, CIM reported 521 coronavirus cases and 12 deaths. Chuckawalla Valley Land Prison in Blythe reported 989 and Avenal State Prison house reported 665, co-ordinate to the prison organisation's COVID-19 tracker.
Prison officials said those transferred were bused with 5 reusable cloth barrier masks, "which were required to be worn throughout the transportation."
Half dozen employees at San Quentin have tested positive for the virus but since returned to work, according to the corrections section.
Jerry Pitts, 56, who is in the Northward Block at San Quentin, just completed radiation for prostate cancer.
"This prison house was clean, it was good," Pitts said in a telephone interview. "Nosotros didn't have anything, and at present they jeopardize us past bringing people in."
Harder, who is diagnosed with HIV, said the newly transferred people will likely encounter the same nurses and come into contact with the same correctional staff.
"Medical hither is trying to do the best they tin can, but they're getting handed a bunch of crap," he said. "There's simply so much they can exercise."
In late March and early on April, prisoner advocates filed emergency motions in federal courts, arguing that California should release large numbers of vulnerable and low-risk prisoners to salvage crowded weather condition and prevent inevitable sickness.
State lawyers fought dorsum and resisted sweeping releases. Somewhen, a watchdog appointed past a federal court urged that especially vulnerable prisoners from the Chino prison who tested negative for the coronavirus should "be transferred to facilities in institutions that remain COVID-costless," co-ordinate to a May 27 courtroom filing.
While prison house officials initially intended to transfer nearly 700, the prison's health care system halted the rest of the moves last week, said Steve Fama, a staff chaser with the Prison Law Office who represents the plaintiffs.
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"It'southward disappointing that these transfers, which were washed to effort to go on people safe, has at present created a state of affairs where the people at San Quentin have to at present worry about whether they're safe of the virus," he said.
Megan Cassidy and Jason Fagone are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Electronic mail: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com, jason.fagone@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy, @jfagone
Source: https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Coronavirus-and-prisons-Prisoners-went-weeks-15325787.php
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