- Staff ignored or minimized prisoners’ COVID-19 symptoms, and mixed the sick and healthy together in haphazard quarantines.
- Thousands of prisoners were shipped around the country in February and early March, taking the virus with them, according to BOP records obtained by VICE News and The Marshall Project.
- Correctional officers and other staff felt pressured to work even after being exposed to sick prisoners.
- The BOP failed to follow its own pandemic response plan, which called for spacing out prisoners. Photos and videos show sick men in bunk beds just two feet apart.
- Federal officials have allegedly tried to conceal the extent of the outbreak by limiting testing — so that they didn’t have to report positive cases — and refusing to recognize one staff death. As of Tuesday, they had completed testing on less than 13% of prisoners in BOP-run facilities.
- Prisoners reported being quarantined in filthy buildings that had been vacant for years or in tents that flooded during rainstorms. Some described listening to their friends dying around them.
“I begged them to let me die”
Elkton holds about 2,300 men at two prisons in the same compound. Both are considered low-security and have open, dormitory-style housing. Two or three beds are stacked in cubicles that measure about 80 square feet, with low walls and no door. There’s room for only one person at a time to stand up.That setup is typical for low-security federal prisons, making them excellent incubators for COVID-19. The BOP has been aware of the risk for years. After the MERS coronavirus outbreak in 2012, the agency created a “Pandemic Influenza Plan.”“Instead of trying to help these people, they are covering it up and trying to control the public’s perception of the situation here at Elkton.”
Elkton prisoner Aaron Campbell said he was sent to “the hole” as punishment for posting a video on Facebook that showed sick inmates packed together in dorm-style housing units. Photo illustration by Sungpyo Hong/VICE News. Images via Aaron Campbell/Facebook.
“He’s a number; not a human”
A letter from Elkton inmate Francisco Mireles describing prison conditions in April. Photo illustration by Sungpyo Hong/VICE News.
”The movement is just so much”
More than 93% of prisoners at the low-security prison in Lompoc, California, have tested positive for COVID-19. Photo illustration by Sungpyo Hong/VICE News. Image via AP Images.
“They try to downplay it as much as possible”
Cloth face masks made in prison factories were handed out to prisoners and staff at Carswell Federal Medical Center in Texas and the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida. Photo illustration by Sungpyo Hong/VICE News. Image via a federal Bureau of Prisons sources.
“It was like watching a horror movie”
Thousands of prisoners were shipped through the federal transfer in Oklahoma City in February, March and April, according to records obtained by VICE News and the Marshall Project. Photo illustration by Sungpyo Hong/VICE News. Image via the Bureau of Prisons.
