Almost three-quarters of the inmates at Ohio’s Marion Correctional Institution have tested positive for the pandemic coronavirus that causes COVID-19, state officials announced April 19.
1,828 inmates at the correctional facility in north-central Ohio have the virus — the majority of the 2,426 cases confirmed inside Ohio’s prison system. Another 109 staff members at the prison have also tested positive.
So far, no deaths have been reported at Marion due to COVID-19. The facility’s 667 inmates who have not tested positive for the virus are being quarantined.
The state’s prison system has become a major epicenter of the spread of the disease, accounting for more than one in five of the state’s cases. Another facility, Pickaway Correctional Institution, has confirmed 384 cases of the virus among inmates and another 64 among prison staff. Roughly 1,600 inmates who have not tested positive for the virus have been separated from those who have.
Five inmates at Pickaway have died from the virus, as has one inmate patient at the Franklin Medical Center, which has confirmed 103 cases of COVID-19 among inmates there.
Inmates with severe cases are being treated at nearby hospitals. Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction officials say many cases that have been detected are asymptomatic.
The sharp increase in cases in Ohio’s prisons comes as a debate rages about the proper course of action to slow the virus’ spread in the state’s correctional system.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine last week authorized the release of 105 inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses who have upcoming release dates anyway. Some advocates, including the ACLU of Ohio, want more sweeping changes.
Last week, the Ohio Supreme Court agreed with a motion by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to dismiss a complaint brought by the ACLU and others on behalf of HIV-positive inmate Derek Lichtenwalter seeking release from prison. In its decision, the high court said it did not have the power to compel DeWine or the state legislature to order the prisoner’s release under the specific legal action he had taken. But at least one Justice, Michael Donnelly, also had very strong words for the governor and Ohio’s General Assembly about the state’s prisons related to the crisis.
“I hope that petitioner and others in Ohio do not see today’s decision as the judiciary’s throwing up its hands and claiming that there is nothing that it can do,” Donnelly wrote in an opinion concurring with the court’s decision. “The whole of Ohio’s government needs to take serious, unprecedented steps to prevent the catastrophe of unmitigated spread of COVID–19 to the tens of thousands of prisoners in Ohio as well as to the tens of thousands of people who are prison employees along with those living in the households of prison employees. Ohio’s executive branch, including the governor, the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, the Adult Parole Authority, and the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee collectively have broad authority to take an assortment of steps to prevent such a catastrophe.”
As of April 19, Ohio had 11,602 confirmed cases of COVID-19, which had caused 471 deaths. Health officials confirmed more than 1,000 new cases of the virus and 20 more deaths caused by it that day alone.
This article appears in Apr 15 – May 5, 2020.
