Jail touts COVID success
But county inmates still report a lack of tests and mask use
Through spring, summer and early fall the Harris County Jail averted the “nightmare scenario” of a COVID-19 outbreak as more than 50,000 people cycled through its bunks. But inmates say jailers have been slow to address medical needs and lax about following their own protocol on mask use.
Given the cramped living quarters at the country’s second largest lockup, social distancing was impossible. Instead officials focused on testing, quarantining and isolating pregnant women, said Dr. Ericka Brown, who manages public health and safety at the facility for Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
“I don’t want to jinx us, but overall we’re doing a phenomenal job at combating COVID exposures and COVID infections in the jail,” Brown said. “I think we are in an excellent position that we don’t have that nightmare scenario.”
Thirty-five people are housed in “hot tanks,” and no one among the population of more than 8,500 is hospitalized with the virus, Brown said.
Six inmates 53 and older died with the virus, and one 70-year-old jail employee died of the disease, according to the sheriff’s spokesman, Jason Spencer.
“We can always do better, and we
mourn the deaths of our employees and the people entrusted into our care at the jail, but the bottom line iswe have done a better job of containing the spread ofCOVID-19 in the jail than the free world has done,” Spencer said. “Our team accomplished this despite a swelling jail population, no ability to socially distance, and with no real compassionate release program.”
Efforts toreduce the incarcerated population at the outset of the pandemic were stymied by court challenges from Gov. Greg Abbott and District Attorney Kim Ogg over concerns that releasing defendants withprior convictions or pending charges involving violent crime. The jail population, composed largely of people awaiting trial, dipped by about 1,500, and has since been on a steady rise to its pre-COVID capacity.
Incarcerated people still face a court backlog dating back to HurricaneHarvey, which has been exacerbated by the virus. For example, Xavier Dangerfield told the Texas Jail Project this week that the hearing for his release on a DWI has been reset three times since April due to a series of quarantines on his unit, normally designated for veterans, which keeps getting new transfers who test positive.
Beginning inMarch, the jail fortified itself, halting family visits and rec time and running temperature checks for employees at entrances to the buildings — safeguards that have remained in place. New arrivals received COVID tests on their way in, and 14,000 inmates participated in facility-wide tests in August and September.
Brown said the clinic has a very low threshold for administering a test.
“If you say you have a tickle in your throat, we are automatically going to quarantine you andwe’re going to test.” Positive results are reported to inmates within 48 to 72 hours, she said.
But inmates at the jail offered a different perspective in calls and letters to the Texas Jail Project, a nonprofit that collects information about violations, mistreatment, discriminationandmedical
neglect at county jails across the state. In addition, 41have sued the county, jail and sheriff over their exposure to the virus, arguing the jail placed them at risk when it should have protected them.
Dozens of incarcerated people and their loved ones told the Jail Project that officials took more than a day, sometimes weeks, to respond to requests for COVID tests, even when they had symptoms. Some reported they never heard their results after their release from the jail.
Christina Abbott, 45, said she got sick but never learned the outcome of a COVID test administered during quarantine, adding, “They keep moving people around and people keep getting sick and nobody can get out.”
Brown, at the sheriff’s office, agreed that in some cases people with negative results were not notified, but she said all positive results have been successfully reported, including people released from the jail.
KDee Underwood, 42, who recently transferred out of the jail , saidwhile shewas there thewomen
on her pod were swabbed for the virus and she was mistakenly given a positive result, which a nurse corrected. Officials ultimately told the women they’d all tested negative. Then several inmates got sick.
Oneinmate, whoaskedthat her name be withheld, was scared when someone sneezed near her during booking. She was worried about the shared drinking fountain and people in the sitting area who weren’t using masks.
Joyce Ann Cato wrote she was sick for 12 days in Julywith the telltale symptoms. In triage, the nurse instructed her they’d provide an appointment in three to nine days. By October, she said, the clinic still had not arranged a follow up.
Another concern for inmates was hygiene.
Brown, from the sheriff’s office, said the jail is cleaning at minimum three times a day and distributes “copious amounts of hand soap.” Again inmates shared differing accounts.
Amanwho sharedhis storybut did not give permission for his
name to be used wrote that the disinfectant jug the jail provides does notcomewith a spray attachment for inmates to spread it onto phones, tables, doors, showers, toilets. People who use their own bottles to spread it have had them confiscated, he said. Dangerfield told the Jail Project that soap is delivered in set quantities once a week and guards won’t bring morewhenit runsout intwodays.
Another pervasive concernwas inconsistent mask use by guards. The jail provides masks for guards and inmates, but Abbott estimated about one in 10 officers entering the pod wearing one. Guards enter the pods with masks dangling by one ear, Dangerfield said, but they’ll strap it on in the hallway so higher ranking officers don’t see them without it.
Masks are required at all times for staff , Brown said but “just like in the community, it’s difficult to enforce it100percent of the time.” It’s easier to get inmates to wear them. If you break a mask, you get a newone.
Aninmatewhoworks as a trustee in the kitchen said guards don’t
always wear masks in that area. Cato, the inmate who never got her followup appointment, wrote that twice when she was taken to get her insulin shot in early October, the officer accompanying her refused towear amask. When she asked why, he said, “Just worry about yourself.”
The trustee with diabetes said he and his coworkers in the kitchen worked in close quarters, so it didn’t seem logical for the jail to call off going to the rec yardor religious services for the sake of social distancing.
Jails grapple with infectious diseasesona regular basis, saidBrandon Wood, executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. He said he’d fielded complaints from inmates and family members, but felt the county had done “a pretty good job” of prevention, treatment and not letting the disease get out of control even though it had a high number of positive tests. The jail was one of the first todo mass testing and quarantining, he said.