How North Carolina’s Prisons Worsen the Spread of COVID-19 Throughout the State

Inmates at the Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro, N.C. Source.

Throughout the United States, COVID-19 cases are especially prevalent in prisons due to the large numbers of people in close proximity to each other and poor sanitation provisions given to inmates. In order to slow the spread in these facilities, the Department of Public Safety recommended some inmates should finish their sentence outside of prison. In just the first few months following this recommendation, over 200 inmates were scheduled to be released before their time. However, this attempt at mitigating the number of people infected has actually had the opposite effect. 

In North Carolina, about a fifth of every tested inmate tested positive for the virus. The virus is also responsible for the deaths of at least 36 prisoners and at least seven guards throughout the state in 2020. Releasing inmates was intended to reduce the population in facilities so more social distancing measures could be put in place and the number of potential infections would decrease. The policy did work to get inmates out of prisons, and, as of December 2020, prison populations in the state have decreased by five percent. However, inmates leaving prisons means there are people entering communities. In order for their reentry to occur safely, the state would have to provide and ensure adequate testing and quarantining measures, which has only recently become a widespread practice in North Carolina. Despite the large and growing number of cases in North Carolina prisons, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Safety said none of the inmates released were tested for the first few months of the policy. 

Additionally, many inmates did not have transportation or a place to stay and quarantine after they were released. They were forced to take public transportation to halfway houses, where they still shared rooms with former inmates. Many of these reentry facilities are overwhelmed at the influx of former inmates needing housing. The effects of these failed reentry practices are dire. Studies estimate over 13,000 cases around the state are tied to the unsafe methods of releasing inmates.

Many community leaders and activists have scrutinized these release practices, as well as general practices in prisons during the pandemic . The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of North Carolina and several other advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit in June 2020 that contended the current conditions of prisons in the state are unconstitutional. The lawsuit was brought to the North Carolina Superior Court, where a judge announced the court would most likely rule in favor of the ACLU. After this ruling, a new plan for incarceration was introduced with many more COVID-19 precautions. 

Prisons around the state began using these new guidelines near the end of December 2020. This protocol requires inmates be tested before they are released, and multiple other times while inside the prison. It also provides a hotel room for inmates who do test positive to quarantine until they are no longer contagious to slow the spread and relieve some pressure off of reentry facilities. Though these new plans seem to predict a much brighter future for released inmates, they have fallen flat so far. For example, though every inmate is required to get tested, less than half of the inmates are actually tested each month. This is still an improvement from the earlier months of the pandemic, but is far from the effective measures necessary to keep North Carolina’s communities safe.