Limited visits to resume at California prisons one year after suspension due to COVID
A year after prisons suspended in-person visits statewide, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is beginning a phased reopening plan that allows limited visitation starting next month.
State prison officials announced their reopening plan Tuesday as California counties moved into COVID-19 tiers with less coronavirus restrictions, and more schools and businesses reopened for indoor operations.
“CDCR recognizes the value of visitation for the incarcerated population and the importance of maintaining family and community ties, which is why we have worked hard to be able to bring it back as quickly and as safely as possible,” CDCR Secretary Kathleen Allison said in a news release. “We also continue to work to reopen all rehabilitative programs so that the incarcerated population may take advantage of the life-changing opportunities available.”
As the pandemic spread through state prisons over the past year, one in four employees and half of inmates have tested positive since the first California inmate was diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 22, 2020. California in-person prison visits were suspended that same month.
San Quentin State Prison faces a $421,880 fine, which is California’s single largest penalty yet over workplace safety violations contributing to the spread of COVID-19, state officials announced in February. The fine stemmed from a June inspection by state regulators.
The family of Daniel Ruiz, 61-year-old inmate, has filed a lawsuit against corrections officials after he died from COVID-19 while being housed at San Quentin State Prison during an outbreak there last year.
As of Tuesday, there were 32 active COVID-19 cases in the state’s 35 prisons, and 22 prisons had no active cases, CDCR officials said in the news release. Since the pandemic, nearly 50,000 inmates have been diagnosed with the coronavirus — of those cases, 216 inmates died from COVID-19, according to the CDCR’s COVID-19 dashboard. More than 16,000 correctional employees contracted the virus — 26 of them died.
The limited in-person prison visits will begin April 10, but there will be significant changes to how those visits are conducted.
Those changes include temperature and symptom screenings, COVID-19 testing, physical distancing, face coverings, limiting the number of visitors at a given time, and length of time allowed for each visit, according to the corrections department.
There will be other expectations for visitors, and CDCR officials will provide more specific details for visitors, along with steps to schedule in-person visits, in the next few days. Video visits, which have been available at all 35 state prisons since late last year, will continue at prison facilities and fire camps where it’s deemed feasible.
“This is an important step forward, and we will work with the incarcerated population, families and staff to ensure a smooth transition into this new normal,” Allison said in the news release.
The warden and the chief executive officer at each prison will determine whether facilities are safe to conduct in-person visiting, CDCR officials said. The prisons will update visitors on their web pages on the CDCR web site.
The date that a prison resumes in-person visits will depend upon the number of active COVID-19 cases among inmates and staff at each prison. CDCR officials said these considerations may affect the timing for when a prison can reopen for visitors.
Each prison “will continuously evaluate and monitor positive COVID cases and reinstate precautionary measures, as needed,” according to the news release.
This story was originally published March 24, 2021 at 11:52 AM with the headline "Limited visits to resume at California prisons one year after suspension due to COVID."
