Officials: COVID-19 measures working at Porter County Jail

Efforts including isolation upon intake and limiting arrests are keeping COVID-19 from returning to the Porter County Jail and the Juvenile Detention Center even as the number of cases continues to rise in the community, officials for both facilities said.

The jail reported its first cases of the virus in the spring after a cook at the jail was sick and didn’t know and exposed inmate workers to the virus, said Sheriff David Reynolds, adding at one point, 40 or so inmates were in isolation because they had the virus.

“Since that time, probably in the middle of April, we haven’t had a positive case in the jail,” he said.

The Porter County Juvenile Services Center had its first confirmed case of COVID-19 from a juvenile brought to the center in early September, sending six employees home on quarantine.

The center hasn’t had a case since, said Alison Cox, the Juvenile Detention Center’s director.

“We’ve been very careful in terms of our quarantine process and our screening,” she said.

Both new inmates at the county jail and new residents at the center are placed first in quarantine when they arrive, though Reynolds said they are not quarantined if they bond out.

The Juvenile Detention Center has the capacity for 24 inmates, Cox said, adding before the pandemic, the population averaged around 13 juveniles, though it fluctuated, and now has four residents.

“We temp the kids every day. We monitor their health every day,” she said, adding the center has a full-time nurse and shares a doctor with the jail, and juveniles are tested for the virus when they arrive.

Historically the center has tried to limit the number of juvenile arrests through the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, a statewide initiative that includes screening juveniles before deciding whether to detain them, Cox said.

“The higher risk of a violation, we may ask for detention on probation violation,” she said, adding the alternatives initiative includes two levels of house arrest. “We have other things we do before we ever detain a kid.”

The county jail is doing what it can to limit its population as well. Around 70% of the inmates in the jail at any time are there for probation violation and can stay there for weeks, Reynolds said.

The jail population is around 285 inmates, including 50 in federal custody, Reynolds said, and jail officials are hoping to drop that number to around 250 by working with probation and the prosecutor’s office for a “priority list” of who they want arrested.

If someone who violated probation is not on that list, they are told to call their probation officer or risk going to jail.

“We’re trying to keep our jail population manageable,” Reynolds said, adding the Indiana Department of Correction is not taking sentenced inmates right now because of the pandemic, so 10 inmates are waiting for transfers.

Any inmate who leaves jail for a court date, medical appointment or other reason has to be quarantined for two weeks, Reynolds said.

The jail has ultraviolet l i ght sanitizing l amps, among other measures for keeping the facility clean and has started giving inmates rapid tests for the virus. If they test negative but have symptoms, they receive a nasal swab test.

“We know it could explode any time but the inmates right now are healthy so if they get sick, it’s because of us,” Reynolds said.