Federal prison system to move nearly 7K inmates
WASHINGTON — The federal Bureau of Prisons will begin moving about 6,800 inmates who have been waiting in local detention centers across the U.S. to federal prisons to avoid jail overcrowding in the coronavirus pandemic, officials said Friday.
It’s not clear when it would begin. The inmates will be sent to one of three designated quarantine sites — FCC Yazoo City in Mississippi, FCC Victorville in California and FTC Oklahoma City — or to a Bureau of Prisons detention center.
All the inmates who are being moved will be tested for COVID19 when they arrive at the Bureau of Prisons facility and would be tested again before they are moved to the prison where they would serve their sentence.
The prisoners have already been sentenced to federal crimes but were unable to be moved from local facilities as the coronavirus pandemic struck over concerns the virus would spread rampantly.
In a memo issued to staff earlier this week, Bureau of Prisons officials said the inmates would be held there “until such time that inmates can be moved safely to their final destination.” The BOP says it has suspended most transfers of inmates already in the federal system, but there are still exceptions for forensic studies, medical or mental health treatment, residential reentry and inmates who are wanted by other jurisdictions.
Bureau of Prisons Director
Michael Carvajal said there has been an expanded testing capacity that will help to mitigate the spread of coronavirus in the federal prison system. As of Friday, more than 4,641 inmates had tested positive for COVID-19 at Bureau of Prisons facilities; 3,047 had recovered. There have been 59 inmate deaths since late March.
The Bureau of Prisons said it has worked with the U.S. Marshals Service to decrease internal movement of inmates by about 90% as compared to this time last year and newly sentenced inmates have been held in local detention centers across the U.S. Inmates move from facility to facility for a variety of reasons, including for court appearances, sentencing, to manage the number of inmates at each facility or for medical or disciplinary reasons.
But the agency said as courts begin to work again after lockdowns, officials must begin moving inmates to “alleviate population pressures” at local detention facilities.
“We believe our proactive approach, including our expanded inmate testing capacity, will aid the Bureau to further combat the introduction and spread of the virus within our prison system,” Carvajal said in a statement.
An additional 7,000 inmates who are already held at Bureau of Prisons facilities, but have been awaiting moves to other prisons, will also be moved “at a later date,” the agency said.
The response from the federal Bureau of Prisons coronavirus has raised alarm among advocates and lawmakers about whether the agency is doing enough to ensure the safety of the about 137,000 inmates serving time in federal facilities.
And even though officials have stressed infection and death rates inside prisons are lower compared with outside, a high number of inmates tested come back positive — signs that COVID-19 cases are left uncovered.
Inmate testing at the designated sites is being performed using Abbott’s ID Now point-of-care test technology, which the Food and Drug Administration flagged last week for potentially returning false negative results. A study by New York University showed the device returned false negatives for 48% of tests that were found to be positive with different tests.