A prison is always a dangerous place to work, but a prison in a pandemic is a special kind of dangerous.
So, it’s appropriate (if overdue) that the state Department of Corrections has started paying workers in COVID-19 hot spot prisons an extra $2 an hour.
Facilities with COVID-19 rates of at least 20% among prisoners kept in cells or 15% among prisons kept in open bay housing are designated hot spots.
The latest reports show eight prisons were hot spots.
Nine inmates and three employees may have died from COVID-19 complications, DOC says. That’s obviously dangerous.
If prison employees start to think they are risking their lives just by going to work, the state won’t be able to staff its facilities at any price.
State appropriated funds will be used for the hot-spot pay as long as the agency’s budget can sustain it, DOC says. That’s a puzzling choice at a time when the federal government is picking up billions in state COVID-19 costs.
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As the Oklahoma Public Employees Association has pointed out, taking money that was meant to maintain normal operations of the agency will mean other parts of the already underfunded prison system will be shorted.
The hot-spot pay seems like exactly the kind of pandemic costs Congress had in mind when it appropriated relief money.
It’s also puzzling that the state hasn’t taken up the offers of philanthropic and nonprofit groups to get prisoners who aren’t a danger to society out of Taft’s Eddie Warrior Correctional Center, the minimum-security prison with one of the worst COVID-19 problems.
Advocates from across the state have offered 150 transitional living beds, $2,250 in stipends for each of 200 women over 60 days, $100,000 in emergency reentry support upon release and case management services to help get women out of the prison, but the state is yet to respond.
Meanwhile, the corrections department is upping its game in mandatory testing of inmates and staff. Previous voluntary testing of employees had mixed results. DOC is also using remote monitoring to make sure mask requirements and other safety measures are being followed.
The confined living spaces and big populations that are inherit in Oklahoma’s overburdened corrections system are ideal breeding grounds for coronavirus. The state has a legal and moral responsibility to keep its prisons safe for inmates and employees. It’s also in the state’s public health interest. As we’ve said before, razor wire and bars don’t stop the spread of a communicable disease.
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