By Bill Badour
BAY CITY – As of Wednesday, April 15, Michigan’s prisons have had nine deaths and 429 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Chris Gautz is the public information officer for the Michigan Department of Corrections.
“We have ramped up production of soap, increased our cleaning supplies and authorized daily bleach use for cleaning,” says Gautz.
Adding to the cleaning measures, there have been changes made for visitors and employees of the correctional facilities, as well as social distancing measures.
“As of March 15, we suspended visitation,” says Gautz. “We have also started screening employees with a questionnaire and a temperature check. We also cut class sizes in half, suspended basketball and encouraged all prisoners to not gather in large groups.”
Social distancing in prisons can be difficult. Prisoners sleep on bunk beds and live in communal blocks with sometimes dozens of other prisoners.
“We cannot practice social distancing with prisoners in their sleeping environment,” says Gautz.
To better protect inmates and staff, the prison has made use of their facilities to increase the availability of protective garments.
“We have utilized our prison factories to make [personal protective equipment] and masks,” says Gautz. “In a week, over 150,000 cloth masks have been made. This has provided every prisoner and staff member with three reusable cloth masks.”
Even with all of the precautions being taken, there is still a chance for infection, as we have seen in other parts of the country.
“If the prisoner doesn’t have many symptoms, they will be moved to one of two specialized units which are set up for those who have tested positive but experience less severe symptoms,” says Gautz. “This is done to slow the spread at the facility that they came from.”
Once the prisoner has recovered, they are not put back into the facility they were originally from right away.
“After the prisoner has spent at least two weeks at the facility and tests negative, they are moved to Adrian to a facility with others that have tested positive and recovered,” says Gautz. “This is an extra layer of caution as we want to be extra careful to not spread anything within our prisons.”
News stories have been published about prisoners being released early from federal and state prisons around the country.
“Due to Michigan’s ‘Truth in Sentencing’ law, all prisoners must serve 100% of their minimum sentence,” said Gautz. “We cross-referenced a list of 5,000 prisoners who have served their minimum sentence with those who either have a chronic health condition or are elderly.”
There is a chance that some Michigan prisoners, given their circumstances and availability of prosecution and victims to respond, could be released early.
“In Michigan, there is a law [to be released early] which requires us to notify county prosecutors and victims and give them 28 days to respond,” said Gautz. “Due to the public health crisis, we have asked county prosecutors to get back to us as soon as possible but we are not asking any victims to do this.”
