NC federal prison didn’t follow quarantine and mask procedures, COVID inspection finds
A federal inspection into the Butner Federal Correctional Complex’s handling of COVID-19 outbreaks found improper usage of masks, risky movements of inmates and difficulties following the U.S. attorney general’s directive to step up releasing at-risk inmates.
Butner is home to one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the federal prison system. According to the federal Bureau of Prisons’ website, more than 1,200 inmates have tested positive for the virus. Most have recovered, but 28 have died from COVID-related complications. More than 140 staff have tested positive, and while many have recovered, a senior correctional officer died from the virus.
The virus began hitting the complex in late March. The complex currently has more than 3,500 inmates in a medical center, two medium security prisons and a low security prison. One of the medium security prisons also has an adjacent minimum-security camp.
For several weeks, the virus ran through the medical center, the medium security prison and camp, and the low-security prison. Cases slowed until near the end of the year, when the other medium-security prison had an outbreak with more than 300 inmates and 18 staff testing positive. Cases have since declined, but one inmate in that prison died earlier this month, the bureau reported.
The Office of the Inspector General for the Justice Department said in its 46-page report released Thursday the open layout in housing units at three of the prison’s facilities made it difficult to “implement and enforce effective social distancing measures.”
Other issues:
Butner didn’t comply with some bureau “quarantine guidance” because it had a high volume of cases and lacked quarantine space.
The complex didn’t quarantine inmates after they tested negative for COVID-19, and as a result they were “likely exposed to known COVID-19 positive inmates, which was inconsistent with (bureau and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidance.”
While Butner sought to reduce staff movements throughout its facilities, those restrictions didn’t “fully mitigate the risk of cross-contamination and spread of COVID-19 at three of its five facilities.”
Butner had sufficient supplies of personal protective equipment, but inspectors found staff “were not changing N95 respirators when moving between units that had COVID-19 positive inmates and negative inmates, “which may have increased the risk of cross-contamination.” Inmates who were quarantined in the low-security facility and prison camp after close contact with those who tested positive should have been wearing surgical masks instead of cloth masks.
Died while awaiting transfer home
Early in the outbreak, U.S. Attorney General William Barr told prisons to release some at-risk inmates to home confinement to protect them and slow the spread of the coronavirus. The inspector general’s report said Butner “worked to comply” with Barr’s guidance, but “the composition of the inmate population and the need to adapt to rapidly changing guidance presented challenges to reducing the complex’s population in a timely manner.”
“Although as of May 9 FCC Butner was enduring a full-blown outbreak with more than 240 inmates having contracted COVID-19, the BOP had used its enhanced authority to use home confinement to mitigate the spread of the virus in the cases of only 41 of Butner’s inmates,” the report said. “Further, three inmates who were deemed eligible for transfer to home confinement died from COVID-19 while awaiting their transfer, one on April 28, one on June 3, and the third on July 3.”
Emails The News & Observer sent to bureau and Butner prison officials late Thursday morning weren’t returned. A response from the bureau in the inspector general’s report disputed the inspection findings.
The inspector general conducted the inspection remotely because of federal social distancing policies, the report said. Staff interviewed Butner staff on the phone, surveyed all bureau staff, reviewed documents about the bureau’s and Butner’s management of the pandemic and looked at more than 100 complaints from inmates, staff and others.
The bureau said with regard to the low-security facility, incoming inmates “were placed in quarantine and positive COVID-19 inmates were placed in isolation. Contact investigations were completed on every positive COVID-19 inmate and any close contacts were housed within the quarantine range.”
At the medium-security prison with the camp prison officials “had to expand its established quarantine and isolation areas many times to accommodate the evolving guidance,” the bureau said.
N95 masks were in short supply when the outbreak hit, the bureau said, but the prison followed CDC guidance that “allowed for up to five times use as long as proper handling and storage of mask was maintained utilizing assigned brown paper bags.”
The bureau said some inmates eligible for home confinement couldn’t be released because medical needs “could not be met in the community.”
The Marshall Project and the N&O reported in July that more inmates were winning release not through Barr’s directive, but by petitioning their sentencing judges. The joint report also found the prison complex was slow to test inmates for the virus and increased the risk for inmates as they were moved in and out of quarantines.
In May, lawyers on behalf of 11 inmates filed a class action lawsuit against the bureau and the prison to force the release of more at-risk inmates. A federal judge declined their request for immediate release. Citlaly Mora, a spokeswoman for the ACLU of North Carolina, one of the groups representing the inmates, said they refiled the lawsuit in October.
She said the inspector general’s findings weren’t surprising, and show the need for court action to release more at-risk inmates.
“These are things that we’ve been saying all along. They have not been taking adequate precautions,” she said. “That’s why we’re continuing with the lawsuit.”
She said at least one of the 11 inmates who filed the lawsuit has since died from COVID-19 complications.
“We’re sad to see that, and that just makes it more urgent, especially with new variants emerging,” she said.
This story was originally published January 28, 2021 at 1:04 PM with the headline "NC federal prison didn’t follow quarantine and mask procedures, COVID inspection finds."