Federal inmates from the District reported a lack of access to medical care and coronavirus testing in the pandemic’s opening months, as well as inconsistent precautions among staffers, according to a survey by a watchdog agency.
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According to a D.C. Corrections Information Council report released this month, 37 percent of D.C. prisoners who responded to its survey said they had not been able to get medical care in the past 60 days, while 4 out of 5 respondents said they had not been tested for the coronavirus.
One unnamed prisoner included in the report lost their sense of smell — a common symptom of the coronavirus — and reported the problem to prison staffers, but “no action was taken,” according to a survey comment included in the report.
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“I did not or do not give up my rights to be safe, treated by policy in a consistent humane and reasonable manner,” the comment said. “I did not come to prison to be a medical experiment.”
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D.C. inmates have served their time in prisons across the country since D.C.’s prison closed in early 2001.
Under federal law, the D.C. Corrections Information Council monitors and reports on conditions of confinement for D.C. prisoners, including those held by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and private contractors. More than 4,000 of these prisoners are serving time in federal facilities, according to the agency’s most recent annual report.
In June 2020, the council sent surveys to more than 1,700 D.C. prisoners in more than 100 federal facilities across the country. It received more than 500 responses to questions about medical care, access to masks, cleaning protocols, and inmates’ ability to communicate with the outside world.
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In its final report, dated July 2, which followed preliminary results released in January, the council said “concerns raised by DC residents in the BOP suggest serious discrepancies between the BOP’s stated policies and DC residents’ experiences.”
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Inmates had “significant challenges accessing phone and email communication during the limited out-of-cell time provided,” the report said. Inmates also said prison employees did not consistently wear masks or personal protective equipment as the pandemic swept through correctional facilities.
“It’s very scary and overwhelming because they’re putting my life in danger,” said one unnamed prisoner quoted in the report. “If I wear my mask to make sure I’m safe as well trying to protect staff from me then I believe they should do the same.”
A grandmother didn’t answer her phone during a class. She was sent back to prison.
The report said managing the pandemic “throughout the varied institutional settings in the BOP is an incredible challenge.”
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“BOP institutions do not easily lend themselves to social distancing, and systems for distributing resources are complex,” the report said. “Nevertheless, the BOP is responsible for the safety and welfare of over 170,000 staff and residents and must meet this challenge.”
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The council’s report included a response from the bureau, which said it had “expanded testing and precautionary measures” since last year.
According to the BOP’s website, 240 inmates and four staff members have died of covid-19. The Marshall Project, a nonprofit organization that covers criminal justice, reported last year that coronavirus deaths in prison may be undercounted because of inconsistent reporting.
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“Initially, we were challenged by an upsurge in inmate positive cases, but as a result of our mitigation strategies and lessons learned, we were able to flatten the curve, both at our hotspots and in our institutions nationwide,” the Bureau of Prisons was quoted as saying in the report. “It is our highest priority to continue to do everything we can to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our facilities.”
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The Washington Post reached out to a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, but she declined to comment further.
Frail inmates could be sent home to prevent the spread of covid-19. Instead, some are dying in federal prisons.
Molly Gill, vice president of policy for the nonprofit prisoner advocacy organization Families Against Mandatory Minimums, told The Post that the report was unsurprising. Problems incarcerated people from the District face are further compounded because they are often housed far from home, she said.
“This lines up with stories we’ve been hearing from day one of the pandemic from federal prisons across the country,” Gill said.