Stories from the COVID-19 Pandemic

As the novel coronavirus ravages communities across the country, North Carolina is not exempt from the pandemic’s effects.

According to the NC Department of Health and Human Services, the state had registered 2,402 cases and 24 deaths as of April 5, and Buncombe County had reported 31 confirmed cases and 1 death.

The reported infections include seven in the NC prison systems: an inmate has been diagnosed with the disease at Johnston Correctional Institution in Smithfield, and four cases at Neuse Correctional Institution, according to John Bull, a N.C. Department of Public Safety spokesperson. Two inmates at Caledonia Correctional Complex in Eastern North Carolina have also tested positive for COVID-19.

How is this affecting members of our community who work on the front lines, and in the background, of our public safety system?

Guards at risk

Inside the state’s prisons, guards feel stressed and at risk. While the rest of the state is under Governor Cooper’s mandatory stay-at-home order and the federal government’s “social distancing” guidelines, neither option exists inside our prisons.

“There’s no social distancing within the system,” one guard told us, under a guarantee of anonymity for fear of reprisals at speaking out. “But they keep sending new batches of prisoners on transfer buses all over the state,” including to facilities in western NC.

In normal times, transfer buses move inmates from one facility to another for a variety of reasons: to put them closer to where they’ll live when they’re released; to move them from one level of security facility to another, such as from medium security to minimum; because they require the availability of 24/7 medical services, which some prisons lack; or to be available for a court date.

“How do you justify shipping anyone anywhere, when it jeopardizes everyone and decreases officer safety? Why can’t [transfers] be stopped until the curve is flattened?” the officer asked.

Early release possible

Currently, North Carolina is considering releasing low-level inmates due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as other states have done. John Bull, communications director for the Department, affirmed that the possibility is under discussion.

On March 27, 10 health experts from Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill sent a letter to Gov. Roy Cooper urging early release for prisoners who meet certain criteria: those who are elderly, medically vulnerable, or have one year or less remaining on their sentence. The group also called on local officials to drastically reduce jail populations.

“Unless you immediately address this threat,” they wrote, “you are leaving North Carolinians vulnerable to a massive outbreak of COVID-19. But it is within your power to immediately release people from jails and prisons and thus work to mitigate the spread of this disease.”

While it is possible that some inmates might be transferred in anticipation of early release, the guard we spoke to said, “They’re still doing all these transfers. It’s still business as usual.”

Too little, too late?

As of Tuesday April 7, Commissioner of Prisons Todd Ishee announced that inter-prison transfers, as well as transfers from county jails to state prisons, will stop for two weeks in an effort to stop the spread of the virus.

Said Ishee, “We must deny this virus the opportunity to spread. It has gotten into three of our prisons, and we must contain it there to the greatest degree possible. This is imperative for the health and safety of our staff and the men and women who are in our care.”

Unfortunately, the hiatus in transfers, and possible future early releases, might come too late to make a difference. On April 1 the DPS reported that an inmate at Caledonia Correctional Complex in Tillery had tested positive for COVID-19. Nine inmates at Butner Federal Prison also tested positive in the past week, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.

Some guards are reportedly talking—quietly, among themselves—about feeling angry, scared, or concerned enough to consider quitting their jobs. “There are some who are pretty much ready to walk,” our source said.

Punitive measures

At the beginning of April, the Division of Prisons required guards to sign a letter agreeing to the designation of their positions as “a critical/essential/emergency position.” The letter requires officers “to remain at work or report for work as scheduled and directed at all times….”

In the emergency condition of COVID-19, our source told us, “Some of the guards asked what would happen if an inmate tested positive. ‘Oh, they’ll put us in another building.’ That’s what they said!”

The letter also warns that guards who don’t comply may face disciplinary action and other consequences. As a result, some have said that as soon as they get wind that somebody at their facility has the COVID-19 virus, they’re walking out.

“They’re all tiptoeing on thin ice because the prisons are a very vulnerable, high-risk place because everyone is at close quarters, you can’t be spaced apart. Why and where do the rights of murderers, rapists, the men who whack up your mother with a knife, matter more than those of us who are law-abiding citizens working to keep them out of society by putting them in prison? Don’t our rights matter more than theirs?”