SAN QUENTIN – California prison officials created a “public health disaster” in San Quentin and Corcoran prisons last year by transferring inmates from other prisons through a poorly planned and hasty process while fees of COVID-19 were increasing statewide, according to a condemnatory report from a state control agency.
The 69-page report, released Monday by the Office of the Inspector General, found that transfers to San Quentin from the California Institution for Men in Chino made in the spring and summer of 2020 “were deeply flawed and put endangered the health and lives of thousands of people and jailed staff. “The report found that staff relied on outdated or inadequate evidence, that officials were pressured to rush transfers, and that concerns were great measure.
A health executive at Chino Prison even “explicitly ordered that people in jail not be re-tried the day before the transfers began,” the report found. The problems were so obvious that at least two California inmates showed obvious symptoms of coronavirus as they got off the bus from Chino to San Quentin.
Twenty-eight people died from COVID-19 in San Quentin and more than 2,000 cases – about two-thirds of the prison population at the time – contracted the virus, according to data released by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. California.
“Our review also found that when staff became aware of the positive test results shortly after the arrival of the jailed persons, both prisons did not properly conduct contact tracking investigations,” he wrote. ‘Inspector General Roy Wesley in the report’s cover letter. “According to San Quentin, there were too many positive cases over a short period of time to track contacts.”
Wesley’s letter notes that since the transfer debacle, the prison system “has taken multiple actions to better safeguard inmates who transfer between prisons, including procedures that require prisons to conduct COVID-19 tests.” transfer of jailed persons no more than five days before the transfer, followed by a quick test on the day of the scheduled transfer. ”Wesley noted, however, that his office has not yet reviewed these new implementations.
Asked to comment on the findings, a CDCR spokeswoman issued a joint written statement prepared by her department and the California Correctional Health Services.
“We appreciate this OIG report and note that there were many factors that contributed to the need to move people at medical risk from CIM last May that are not reflected in the report,” the statement says. “The transfers were made with the intention of mitigating potential harm to patients with COVID-19 CIM and were based on a risk analysis thought out using the scientific information available in May 2020 on the transmission of this new disease. We have acknowledged that some mistakes have been made in the process of these transfers, and both CCHCS and CDCR have made the appropriate changes to patient movement since then. “
The outbreak has become the subject of an investigation by the State Senate, as well as several lawsuits. It is also a point of attack for advocates of the release, who held a rally over the weekend (a caravan of cars across the bay bridge), which asked Governor Gavin Newsom to follow the advice. of health officials to authorize thousands of releases from the state prison system.
The inspector general’s report is part III of the agency’s long-term review, and the conclusions so far have not been excellent. A report released in October found that while PPE was widely available to prison system inspectors, inspectors noted that “staff and inmates often did not comply with these basic security protocols.” An August report found that vague screening directives “appear to have caused inconsistent implementation among prisons.”
Although COVID-19 rates in San Quentin have dropped dramatically since mid-2020, there are still more than 2,200 active cases across the state prison system. About 200 jailed people have died, according to CDCR data.
Monday’s report suggests that many CDCR and CCHCS saw the disaster arrive. An email from a “CCHCS nursing executive” sent on May 27, a day before transfers began, notes that inmates were tested three weeks earlier, “too many days ago” to take carried out prison transfers, even if the prisoners were quarantined on arrival at the new prison. Another email from the California Institution for Men Manager said, “It’s hard to do things right when you’re in a hurry … I’m surprised HQ wants to move our inmates right now.”
Of those transferred, 189 were medically vulnerable and therefore had a higher risk of death if they contracted the virus, according to the report. Just a day before the first bus left Chino, officials were still debating key details, such as how many people to put on each bus, and where to accommodate them on arrival in Corcoran and San Quentin. When the prisoners arrived, their belongings were so disorganized that it was impossible for the staff to immediately find out what belonged to whom.
“Not only has the prison not been able to test recently the inmates who moved to make sure they were not infected with COVID-19 at the time of the transfers, but the prison medical staff performed verbal temperature tests and of temperature too early for several jailed people scheduled for relocation to be able to effectively determine if they had symptoms of COVID-19 when they boarded buses in Corcoran and San Quentin, ”the report says.