The entire inmate population at the facility will be screened and quarantined, the statement said without providing details.
Local authorities said this week that corrections officers in New York and Georgia had caught the virus, as well as an inmate at New York City’s Rikers Island. In Arizona, the state’s Department of Corrections said Wednesday that it would give inmates free hand soap after an advocacy group exposed a lack of cleaning supplies at local prisons and appealed to a federal judge to intervene.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson has urged President Donald Trump to get coronavirus testing for the 2.2 million people incarcerated in the United States.
“In prison there are too many people in proximity to each other who do not have the option of social distancing and there are literally millions of persons incarcerated who were arrested, but not convicted, who are languishing there awaiting trial,” he wrote in a letter to the President. “My concern is specifically with those arrested for nonviolent crimes.”
Jackson urged Trump to consider releasing people who are under pre-trial detention for nonviolent offenses when they test negative for the virus.
“Because ‘social distancing’ is not an option for prisoners … jail could become an incubator and death sentence for those incarcerated,” he said.