PORTLAND, Ore. — Since March 1, 13 inmates infected with COVID-19 have been released from Oregon’s prisons back into their home counties.
Via email Thursday, spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Corrections Betty Bernt said all 13 had completed their sentences and “…were either positive or had a positive result after release.” She added, per protocol, the state screens all inmates for symptoms and their exposure to others with the virus, then tests each one.
The problem is, the results can take up to seven days, meaning the DOC often doesn’t know an inmate has the virus until after that person has left prison.
Plus, Bernt said, even if officials were to learn an inmate approaching their release date was infected, “DOC does not have the statutory authority to keep an individual beyond their release date.”
All they can do, she said, is contact health officials in the then-former inmate’s county, who warn the infected person they need to quarantine.
That has been the protocol in these cases, she said, though OPB reported in one case, the wrong county was notified.
State Sen. Michael Dembrow (D-Portland) said it’s another reason to treat the likelihood of prisons turning into COVID-19 hot spots as a general public health threat.
“We want to make sure that there is testing of anyone upon release, or they've been quarantined for a couple of weeks, just so we can be absolutely certain that the communities that people are being released to are kept safe as well,” he said in an interview Wednesday.
In order to allow people nearing their release date to quarantine, he said, the population inside must be brought down.
He and a handful of other Oregon lawmakers are pushing Governor Kate Brown to release close to 2,000 inmates, of Oregon’s roughly 15,000, from prison.
Currently, the governor is considering releasing close to 100 older, medically fragile inmates.
Lawmakers want her to expand the criteria and consider those who were convicted for non-violent crimes, are less than six months from the end of their sentences and have housing lined up.
The competing plans came shortly after figures from the DOC and OHA show the state’s largest workplace outbreak exists inside the Oregon State Penitentiary.
As of Wednesday, a total of 140 inmates at the penitentiary have been infected, along with dozens of staff.
One inmate in Oregon’s prison system has died of the virus. Currently, 175 inmates have tested positive throughout Oregon’s prison system.
The DOC has released close to 1,470 inmates, all of whom had completed their sentences, since March 1.