Coronavirus: 70% of Texas Prisoners Tested Are Positive

SAN ANGELO, TX – The new coronavirus has fully engulfed the Texas prison system. With the virus confirmed to have infected more than 1,600 inmates and employees at dozens of units across the state. At least 25 infected prisoners and staff members have died. But, like in the rest of the state, the scope of the virus’ spread behind bars is still largely unknown at this time due to extremely limited testing.

As of Saturday, TDCJ reported they tested roughly 1,700 symptomatic inmates for the virus which is roughly 1% of the state’s prison population. More than 70% of the inmates that have been tested are positive for the coronavirus which is an alarmingly high rate compared with the state overall. 

Epidemiologists say more testing is needed in prisons because they are incubators for diseases, which can endanger not only prisoners and staff, but families and surrounding communities as well.

The TDCJ’s coronavirus policies have evolved during the pandemic following Gov. Greg Abbott announcing a statewide disaster in mid-March, where he directed the prisons to cancel all inmate visitations, and the units to step up their cleaning policies. After the virus appeared in multiple facilities and the first inmate died in early April, the agency began mandatory two-week lockdowns at all prisons where an inmate or employee had tested positive. During these lockdowns, inmates are largely kept in their cells or dorms without recreation and are fed sack meals. A few days later, the TDCJ stopped accepting new inmates from county jails to prevent further contamination of facilities.

Unbeknown to many, prisons and jails are home to many of the country’s largest outbreaks nationally, and the number of infections and deaths continues to rise inside Texas prisons daily. While some lawmakers and advocates have praised TDCJ for how it has reacted to such a complex crisis with very limited resources. However, prisoners’ loved ones and some federal judges argue the protective policies enacted by top-level prison officials aren’t always followed by rank-and-file staff members. 

Many argue that releasing some prisoners early which would include elderly inmates eligible for parole, people close to finishing their sentences, or those who have already been granted parole but are still behind bars is a step in the right direction, however this is a decision that falls to Gov. Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, but neither have indicated any plans to do so.

After some law enforcement officials and conservatives argue that freeing more inmates could lead to a spike in crime when police agencies are already stretched thin, Abbott came out against more releases from lockups.

“We want to prevent the spread of #COVID19 among prison staff & inmates. But, releasing dangerous criminals in the streets is not the solution,” Abbott said in a March tweet.

But according to CBS7 , Seth Prins, an assistant professor of epidemiology and sociomedical sciences at Columbia University, said it’s too late to rely solely on mitigation in the prisons.

Last week, the TDCJ began targeted testing of hundreds of high-risk inmates without symptoms at a handful of prisons, but it has yet to test an entire prison. 

By late April, the TDCJ had only  tested a small group of inmates once who weren’t symptomatic because they had been exposed to someone with the virus. 53 men which shared a dormitory with another man who died from pneumonia and was later found to have COVID-19. None of the dorm-mates tested positive, however a prison spokesperson said the Pack Unit, is receiving extra scrutiny at this time because it’s involved in a federal lawsuit over the agency’s handling of the pandemic.

Jeremy Desel, TDCJ’s spokesperson, said at the time that the agency could not conduct larger-scale testing without approval from the state health department. But a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services said TDCJ did not need approval to conduct mass testing.

New policies have been established and routinely updated to include items such as more cleaning by inmate janitors, masks for employees, and more soap for inmates, but recently inmates have said the policies are not enough to protect them and that unit-level employees are often not abiding by policies anyway.

Recently at the Pack Unit, outside of College Station, two older inmates sued the prison system in late March for failing to protect them from the potentially deadly virus. They asked the court to order the TDCJ to provide personnel with items like face masks and hand sanitizer. The two argued that inmate janitors weren’t given enough cleaning supplies to thoroughly clean the prisons and officers often worked without wearing their agency-issued face masks.

A federal judge slammed the department in a mid-April ruling, calling for a long list of protective measures including inmate masks, extra toilet paper, and testing of all the inmates at the geriatric prison. U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison dismissed TDCJ’s argument that giving hand sanitizer to inmates is dangerous because it contains alcohol and is flammable, but the TDCJ stood firm, and a federal appeals court immediately blocked Ellison’s order, indicating it was too "far-reaching". Days later, the prison system provided cloth face masks to 700,000 inmates which had been made by prison labor as the pandemic hit the state.

Much of TDCJ’s containment focus has been focused on locking down exposed prisons while working to improve testing for all inmates in order to combat the spread of COVID-19 in the Texas prison system. As conditions change, Gov. Abbott and his team plans to take any necessary action in order to protect the lives of prisoners, personnel, families and citizens.