The Oregon Department of Corrections Amid Covid-19 (Part One)
An inmate at Oregon State Penitentiary describes a lack of response to the Covid-19 virus.
BY MICHAEL D. KELL
PART ONE (3/26)
PART TWO (4/15)
PART THREE (4/23)
PART FOUR (5/13)
PART FIVE (5/14)
PART SIX (5/26)
PART SEVEN (8/14)
PART EIGHT (9/29)
INMATES AT correctional facilities, much like any other high-density populations such as those at assisted-living communities, hospitals, schools, dormitories, and military barracks, are at a much higher risk of contracting virulent diseases, such as COVID-19, due to their proximity to one another. These communities are essentially very efficient breeding grounds, or farms, for these pathogens. Once a seed is introduced, an abundance are readily produced.
Over the past two weeks, state and federal officials have given various directives to the public at large amid the Covid-19 pandemic in an effort to forestall the aforementioned effect of abundant production, and transmission, of this pathogen. The orders to close schools, restaurant dining rooms, gyms, and other recreation facilities, as well as to physically maintain distance from others, are all well-known methods of reducing the transmission of any highly-communicable disease. Corrections administrators, particularly healthcare specialists, are well aware of the realities of this matter. They have a duty to their superiors and to the taxpayers to assure that these directives are rightfully met.
Discontinuing contact visiting and disallowing contractor and volunteer access to the prison was an obvious necessity. Even disallowing non-contact (basic) visiting because of the density of people in the visiting reception area was understandable. However, these measures alone in no way meet the orders mandated by our president and our governor.
The OCE laundry at the penitentiary in Salem processes laundry from the OHSU facility in Portland, which currently has patients suffering from Covid-19 infections. As far as I can tell, nearly half of the prison’s population is symptomatic, and with no test readily available, the outbreak at OSP will likely continue its unabated spread.
And yet, at the time of composing this article (evening of March 21, 2020), corrections officers continue to operate a dining room serving literally hundreds of people, elbow to elbow, three times a day. Additionally, officers continue to permit access to a “card room” which perpetually entertains more than a hundred people, as well as to a very crowded weight area. Officials continue to encourage inmates to participate in close contact sports such as basketball, providing inmates with the necessary equipment for such activities. Staff members have not been utilizing protective equipment such as facemasks or gloves, and regularly touch the very same surfaces as everybody else within the facility. All it takes is that habitual, or nearly involuntary, rub of the eye, nose, or mouth, touch of the lip of a cup before drinking from it, or the good Lord forbid, eating something from your own hand, and IT DON’T WASH OFF NO MORE!
Prisons are not self-contained, closed systems. Staff members return to the community at large several times per hour. This lack of adherence to elected officials’ directives constitutes, at best, professional negligence and very possibly malfeasance in public office. Corrections officials should be held legally liable for their actions when they place not just inmates’ but the public’s lives at risk. This blatant disregard for the health and safety of everyone in the prison—of inmates and staff alike—as well as the public at large undoubtedly constitutes reckless endangerment.
To sum up the matter: WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?
Michael D. Kell is an inmate at Oregon State Penitentiary.
