Protecting Prison Inmates From the Spread of COVID-19

"It 's not a surprise we're facing outbreaks and, at this stage of the pandemic, it's unconscionable that we haven't taken action to address the known sources of transmission."

"It seems that what was done in the first wave of the pandemic has been largely abandoned. I think they need to ramp up both diversion and decarceration [releasing people from custody]."

"It paid dividends from a public health perspective. COVID doesn't stay behind the walls of a prison. Staff go back to their homes and communities every evening: They shop in the same stores we do."

"I'd say it's already a disaster, but it could get much worse."

Professor Justin Piche, University of Ottawa, Prison Pandemic Partnership member

 

"It was quite shocking to see it [provincial jails in Nova Scotia] depopulate so fast -- and see that it could happen without any increase in the crime rate, without any danger to public safety."

"I think there is a genuine concern we won't be as lucky with this new variant."

Dr.Adelina Iftene, law professor, Dalhousie University 

The Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre reported a COVID-19 outbreak that ran from May 22 to June 21, 2021. (Andrew Lee/CBC)

 

According to data released by the Canadian Correctional Service, 81.7 percent of inmates in federal prisons are fully vaccinated. For comparison close to 87 percent of the Canadian population over age twelve is fully vaccinated. However, in maximum-security institutions vaccination rates are considerably lower. Maximum-security facility, Collins Bay Institution sees merely35.4 percent of inmates fully vaccinated, whereas at the minimum-security Joyceville Institute also in Kingston, Ontario, over 96 percent of inmates have been fully vaccinated.

Older inmates, according to the data, are likelier to be fully vaccinated than their younger peers, while white (88.9 percent) and Indigenous (88.4 percent) inmates are more likely to be fully vaccinated than are visible minority (75.4 percent) inmates. Vaccine hesitancy is clearly at work in some groups during the pandemic's grip. Fully 97 inmates and 13 staff members at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre have contracted COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. 

Data compiled by the Prison Pandemic Partnership informs that roughly 10,000 inmates and guards have contracted COVID-19 throughout Canada's corrections system, from the start of the pandemic to the present, translating into a COVID-19 rate of approximately 26 percent, or five times the 4.8 percent infection rate seen in the country's general public.

According to Andrew Morrison, spokesperson for the Ministry of the Solicitor General, all inmates are screened for the coronavirus on admission from police custody into the institutions, or when transferred from one to another. Those who fail to pass screening are placed in medical isolation, while others are temporarily forwarded to an intake unit for several weeks before eventually joining the general prison population.

There are numerous prisons in Ontario dealing with COVID outbreaks, where both inmates and prison staff have contracted the coronavirus. Prisons in Brockville, Milton and Windsor, Ontario have had to cope with outbreaks serious enough that they've had to transfer inmates to other institutions temporarily. Living in relatively close quarters, sometimes multiple prisoners occupying a single cell, ensures the prison population is vulnerable to infection.

Social distancing is difficult, ventilation poor, health care services limited and inmates are often under0-vaccinated. Early in the pandemic an awareness of the potential for this kind of situation to develop saw police, lawyers and judges take action meant to reduce jail system pressures. What resulted was an increase in the number of people released on bail, and those serving weekend sentences were granted temporary absences.

Measures such at those served to reduce the prison population in the province by roughly 30 percent, from 8,300 pre-pandemic, to 5,800. Some prisons by the summer of 2020 were half full. Resulting in provincial jails during the first COVID wave kept under control. In Nova Scotia a case study examining the province's decision-making saw the prisons depopulated by 41 percent early on during the pandemic; only one COVID case was recorded during the first wave.

Since then, prison population numbers have crept back up. According to Dr. Piche of University of Ottawa, provincial jails there have refilled as well. Some 7,400 inmates were behind bars in the province at the start of December with Ontario's inmate population standing at 11.4 percent lower than when the pandemic began.

In an effort to reduce jail capacity, people serving intermittent sentences will once again be given temporary absence passes, according to a December 3 memorandum from the Ministry of the Solicitor General. Leaving officials to review inmate files to determine whether some can be released early. "Those who have been convicted of serious crimes, such as violent crimes or crimes involving guns, would not be considered for early release", according to the memo.

All institutions have suspended personal visits during outbreak situations. All non-essential inmate transfers have been halted. 

 

All inmates have been transferred out of the Brockville Jail due to a COVID-19 outbreak. (Google Street View)