We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

RELENTLESS

COVID’s back… and we’ve got it.

Really, COVID never really left. But seven weeks ago, the BOP reported only 29 inmates and 132 staff with COVID, with the virus present in 70 facilities. As of yesterday, 532 inmates and 414 staff had tested positive for the virus at 106 institutions. Four more inmates had died, two last week.


In public health, of course, “delta” has lately referred to the novel coronavirus delta variant. In math, “delta” refers to the change in a variable (such as “∆x” meaning the change in the value of x). Why this high school math reminder? Because in the BOP, the ∆Covid∆ – that is the change in COVID-19 delta variant infection – is accelerating for both inmates and staff.

Last week, I heard from an inmate who said his institution was offering a special meal and a movie to inmates who agreed to get vaccinated. That was indirectly confirmed by Government Executive magazine, which reported last week that the BOP has “provided guidance about vaccine incentives for inmates to all of the agency’s chief executive officers in an effort to improve institution inmate vaccination rates.”

Currently, the BOP reports that 56.8% of inmates and 52.9% of staff are vaccinated. Despite the President’s announcement that unvaccinated federal employees generally will be treated like Typhoid Mary, the BOP staff rate has not budged a full percentage point in six weeks, while the inmate number has increased by over three. And as Salon reported last week, researchers found that BOP data show that “the infection rate among correctional officers [drives] the infection rate among incarcerated individuals.” The research shows “a three-way relationship between the infection rate of officers, incarcerated individuals and the communities around prisons.

Things are likely to get worse before they get better. Scientists are still unsure how many new infections are “breakthrough” cases in which vaccinated people are catching COVID anyway. Last week, the Administration announced that some people with a two-shot vaccination should get a booster. And while COVID-19 Delta is six times as virulent as old-fashioned COVID-19, yet another variant – COVID-19 Lambda – has just been identified.

Of course, continuing COVID also means continuing opportunities for compassionate release, despite the fact that vaccinations may make proving susceptibility to COVID more difficult. One thing is sure, for all the people who have been asking: Judges may consider that having the vaccine makes one less likely to get COVID, but to a judge, they consider someone who turned down the vaccine to be unworthy of a compassionate release.

Government Executive, Coronavirus Roundup: Booster Shot News; GSA Rethinks the Future of Work (August 17, 2021)

Salon.com, Correctional officers are driving the pandemic in prisons (August 19, 2021)

Bloomberg, The Vaccinated Are Worried and Scientists Don’t Have Answers (August 22, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root