Centre County Correctional Facility temporarily halts inmate acceptance due to COVID-19
The Centre County Correctional Facility is taking preventative steps to ward off a potential COVID-19 outbreak.
The jail does not plan to accept new inmates through at least Jan. 25, except for “very serious offenses,” according to a redacted letter obtained by the Centre Daily Times.
Thirty-four inmates tested positive and recovered from the disease. Eleven employees tested positive; three cases are active. Test results for eight inmates and two employee are still pending.
The changes were implemented Thursday, shortly after a few employees reported symptoms, Warden Christopher Schell said Friday.
“A really important thing for controlling viral spread in prisons is keeping the population down; not having people that don’t need to be in a dangerous congregate care setting in a dangerous congregate setting,” Pennsylvania Prison Society Executive Director Claire Shubik-Richards said. “Centre County is working to do that. They made tremendously good strides in keeping that population down — and while it is down slightly right now — it looks like its started to creep up.”
There were 188 people detained at the jail as of Friday, up from a pandemic-low of 123 on June 20. The jail’s population sat at 261 on Feb. 24, which was 11 days before the first case of COVID-19 was identified in Pennsylvania.
The jail released 749 inmates since March 23, though Shubik-Richards pushed administrators and county prosecutors to again evaluate who is detained.
“This is an opportunity to again examine who is in that jail, who slipped through the cracks,” Shubik-Richards said. “Getting people out of harm’s way is the No. 1 thing for preventing viral spread.”
Schell pushed back against the population increase fueling positive cases. The jail operated Friday at 47% of capacity.
“Would I like less people? It makes things easier, but I can’t really say if the creep up is why this happened,” Schell said. “I wouldn’t say that’s the reason why this happened. I disagree with that.”
The county jail isn’t the only correctional facility in Centre County that has responded to COVID-19. Nearly 1,200 inmates and employees at Benner and Rockview state prison tested positive.
There are 181 active cases among Rockview staff, with 31 tests pending. Another 197 employees recovered.
There are 138 active cases among Benner staff, with 58 tests pending. Another 108 employees recovered.
Inmates haven’t fared better. There are 168 active cases at Benner and 116 active cases at Rockview; 81 tests at Benner and 164 tests at Rockview are pending.
There have been 142 Benner inmates that recovered, along with 125 Rockview inmates.