Political leaders in D.C. successfully scrambled on Tuesday to prevent one of their own — a D.C. elected official who holds his position while incarcerated in the city’s jail — from being transferred to a federal prison more than 100 miles outside the District.

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       Joel Castón’s narrowly averted transfer to a federal prison in Pennsylvania underscores the situation of hundreds of D.C. inmates who are being transferred far from their families and communities this week. By staying in D.C., Castón says, he will be able to keep fulfilling the duties of his office: representing those inmates who will be transferred, his constituents.

       “It really puts me at a complete disadvantage to be able to carry out my job as an elected official, to advocate on behalf of my constituents here, if I am not at my post,” he said.

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       Castón was elected earlier this year as advisory neighborhood commissioner, the District’s most granular level of political office, to represent a Ward 7 neighborhood that includes the D.C. jail.

       About 400 inmates are being transferred this week from the jail to a federal prison in Lewisburg, Pa., after an inspection last month in which the U.S. Marshals Service found unsanitary and unsafe conditions in parts of the District’s facility — an investigation that was pushed by supporters of the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters, some of whom are being held at the jail.

       D.C. Jail inmates are being transferred to Pennsylvania after inspectors found unacceptable conditions

       But the marshals only found those conditions in one part of the jail, the Central Detention Facility (CDF), concluding that prisoners housed in the adjacent Correctional Treatment Facility — where Castón and the Jan. 6 defendants are incarcerated — did not need to move.

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       While Castón was preparing his testimony this week for a D.C. Council hearing on Wednesday about conditions at the jail, he planned to speak about the needs of those inmates at the CDF who are being moved to Pennsylvania, nearly a four-hour drive north. He was stunned when a jail official told him that he would be among the people moving.

       James Zeigler, a lawyer representing Castón, said the U.S. attorney’s office for the District told him that Castón — who has served 27 years in numerous federal prisons and in the D.C. jail for a murder he committed when he was 18 — needed to complete his sentence in federal custody before his release on parole, which is scheduled for Dec. 22.

       Zeigler said he has never seen an inmate in a similar circumstance told that they must complete their sentence in federal prison, and he saw no reason Castón should not be allowed to stay where he is until his release.

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       D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) said he and other D.C. leaders contacted federal offices, hoping to delay or prevent Castón’s transfer. “It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever for them to pull him away weeks before his parole release date. It has nothing to do with public safety,” Allen said.

       He said the case highlighted the District’s lack of power over its own prisoners and parolees, a long-standing aggravation for D.C. leaders because the District, as a city rather than a state, lacks its own prison or parole system.

       On Tuesday afternoon, Allen said the U.S. Parole Commission told D.C. leaders that they would instead allow Castón to stay in the District until his release.

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       Castón said in an interview on Tuesday — a Zoom call that, he was quick to point out, he would be unlikely to be able to participate in if he were housed in a less accommodating facility — that the harsher restrictions in federal prison would probably make it impossible for him to carry out his duties as an advisory neighborhood commissioner.

       How Joel Castón works as an advisory neighborhood commissioner behind bars

       The abrupt transfer of 400 inmates to Pennsylvania presented his most important challenge yet as a commissioner, he said. He plans to tell the council during his testimony Wednesday that despite the poor conditions found by the Marshals Service at the D.C. jail, including problems with cleanliness and food denied to inmates as punishment, most inmates do not want to move to Lewisburg.

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       They fear they will lose touch with their lawyers, and that their families won’t be able to afford the trip to visit. He knows firsthand: For nearly a decade, while he served time in federal prisons, none of his relatives could afford to visit him, he said.

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       The investigation into jail conditions, urged by supporters of the Jan. 6 rioters, led to the transfer of 400 defendants whose crimes had nothing to do with attack on the U.S. Capitol.

       “My constituents feel like they have been used as a ploy,” Castón said. “They feel like they have been used as political pawns. … There’s a lot of fear. There’s a lot of anger.”

       So on Wednesday, he will sit inside the jail, sign on to the computer and testify before the D.C. Council. He’ll urge his fellow local officials to act as advocates on behalf of all of his constituents, just like some sprang into action to help him this week.