Warren, Durbin to Federal Prisons Authorities: Take Urgent Action to Contain Further Spread of COVID-19 in Federal Prisons
BOP is failing to contain COVID-19 within its facilities, including by using counterproductive and harmful measures like solitary confinement; The senators urge BOP to transfer incarcerated individuals to home confinement as authorized under the First Step Act and the CARES Act and as directed by Attorney General Barr; "You have the discretion to significantly reduce the risk the pandemic poses to BOP staff, inmates, and the surrounding communities, by reducing prison populations"
Letter on Failure to Contain COVID-19 (PDF) | Letter on Solitary Confinement (PDF)
Washington, DC - United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) are urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to act promptly to reduce the rapid spread of COVID-19 in federal facilities by adopting a public health-driven approach to managing the novel coronavirus, including releasing eligible individuals to home confinement and adopting appropriate and humane procedures to medically isolate or quarantine individuals infected with COVID-19 instead of counterproductive and harmful measures like solitary confinement.
"You have the discretion to significantly reduce the risk the pandemic poses to BOP staff, inmates, and the surrounding communities, by reducing prison populations. Every day that you fail to do so, more people are at risk," Senators Warren and Durbin wrote to Attorney General William Barr and BOP Director Michael Carvajal.
On March 23, 2020, when a bipartisan group of lawmakers including Senators Durbin and Warren wrote to BOP urging them to protect federal prison staff and inmates from COVID-19 spread, just three inmates and three staff members in BOP facilities had tested positive for the virus. By the time BOP Director Carvajal testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 2, 2020, 68 inmates had died, more than 5,200 inmates and 600 staff had tested positive, and the rate of infection within BOP was more than six times higher than in the general population. Now the virus has spread to almost every BOP institution and dozens of federal halfway houses.
Despite this rapid spread, AG Barr's March 26, 2020 memorandum directing BOP to prioritize home confinement during the pandemic, and the First Step Act and CARES Act provisions granting BOP broad authorities to transfer vulnerable inmates via compassionate release and elderly home confinement, BOP has transferred just four percent of inmates while thousands remain eligible for safe release.
Instead, BOP facilities have reportedly been placing inmates who test positive for the disease in solitary confinement against recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that they instead be placed in medical isolation. The senators call for a public-health focused treatment and response to COVID-19 to stem the risk of COVID-19 transmission throughout the prison and allowing individuals to be medically evaluated. Solitary confinement, by contrast, can inflict severe and long-term physical and psychological trauma and puts inmates at higher risk of suicide. Fear of being placed in solitary confinement can also discourage inmates from coming forward when they are sick, putting other inmates and staff at higher risk of contracting the virus.
"In short, medical isolation should be a humane public-health focused treatment and response to COVID-19, not a punishment for those who have the disease or may have been exposed," the senators wrote in a separate letter to BOP Director Carvajal.
In their letters, Senators Warren and Durbin have asked BOP and DOJ to respond to questions about why BOP has delayed releasing eligible inmates and utterly failed to contain the considerable spread of COVID-19 throughout their facilities.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Senator Warren has been pressing for action and legislation to mitigate the rampant spread of COVID-19 in correctional facilities.
- She has introduced legislation to require free weekly COVID-19 testing for inmates and employees (Federal Correctional Facilities COVID-19 Response Act), legislation requiring public reporting of COVID-19 cases in federal, state and local correctional facilities (COVID-19 in Corrections Data Transparency Act), and cosponsored legislation to safely reduce the federal prison population in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (Emergency Community Supervision Act).
- Early on in the pandemic, she called on the Trump Administration to adopt decarceral guidelines to reduce the population of people in federal custody. For months, she has also called on BOP to conduct universal COVID-19 diagnostic testing of incarcerated individuals and staff, including those at privately-managed facilities, flagged concerns about COVID-19 spread through prisoner transfers, and called for greater transparency of testing and prevention efforts.
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