Cover-ups and COVID-19 in the Broome County Jail

by Daniel Gabel
May 21, 2021

When COVID-19 struck in early 2020, few paused to consider the impact of COVID-19 in the nation’s jails and prisons.  Eventually, in late October, reports like CBS News’, Hundreds of inmates test positive as Covid-19 rips through New York Prison, emerged, raising public concern.

The case was striking. By that time, the Elmira Correctional Facility, with over 1500 inmates, had a nearly 40% positivity rate among those incarcerated, up            significantly from the 24% average positivity rate throughout the year.[1] As a student at Binghamton University who has taken a multitude of courses covering the criminal justice system, I wanted to understand what was happening inside the Broome County Jail (BCJ). Neither the jail nor the county had released data on COVID testing. Upon filing a successful Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request for testing data, a new story began to unfold.

Broome County Jail Testing Rates: The Highest in the State?

If testing data given to us by the Sheriff’s department is to be believed, then Broome County’s incarcerated population were far more infected with COVID-19 than at the Elmira State Prison, which was known to have the highest known COVID-19 numbers in the state. Tests taken at the BCJ from March 18th, 2020 through February 24, 2021 show a 52% positivity rate for inmates and a 41% positivity rate among correctional officers. Even more shocking are the results from December 2, 2020 alone: 39 incarcerated persons were tested yielding an 82% positivity rate. These numbers are extraordinarily high compared to the 8% positive rate for those incarcerated in New York State prisons.[2] Even more alarming, it seemed that the positivity rate at the BCJ was higher than the national positivity rate across prisons. According to the Bureau of Prisons as of early April, about a 43% positivity rate among federal inmates in the United States.[3] Few have asked, “How could this happen when the inmates don’t go anywhere? Aren’t the county and Sheriff supposed to be prepared for something like this?” Every year, every county in the state, by law, must give the governor an emergency preparedness report that covers possible infectious disease epidemics, as in past H1N1, MERS, and SARS outbreaks. So what happened in 2020 when COVID-19 hit the BCJ?

Preparing for Pandemic: Missed Chances

There were warnings. Joseph A. Bick, an infectious disease expert, conducted a study in 2007 titled Infection Control in Jails and Prisons, warning of the potential disasters that would arise due to a coronavirus. His reports states that “the probability of transmission of potentially pathogenic organisms is increased by crowding, delays in medical evaluation and treatment, rationed access to soap, water, and clean laundry, insufficient infection control expertise.”^[4] According to reports coming out of the BCJ, as relayed by family members and members of Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier (JUST),[5] those inside the jail widely reported rationed cleaning and hygiene supplies, a lack of adequate masks, inadequate and variable testing, and a lack of access to clean showers, toilets, underwear, socks, and clothes. Additionally, the jail does not have disease control experts on payroll, therefore there is a lack of expertise on how to contain the virus once it comes into the facility.

Dr. Bick’s report recommended that “each correctional facility requires a written exposure-control plan that includes vaccination of at-risk inmates, [and] education on the use of personal protective equipment.”^[6] Yet as I write, there is a 70+ year old man in the BCJ, who has many health risks that will prove to be deadly if he catches the virus, and yet he is having a difficult time receiving a vaccine when, according to the New York State COVID-19 Vaccine Program (images to the left), the 70+ year old man should have been in priority group one and phase two of the vaccination rollout.[7]  As of April 6, the vaccine will be available to everyone ages 16 and up.[8]  As a healthy 22–year-old student, I had the ability to get an appointment before individuals who are at far greater risk than myself.

Indeed, it took a lawsuit from Legal Aid[9] to get NY State to start vaccinating persons like him, one of the most at-risk populations in the state. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, “people in prisons and jails are disproportionately likely to have chronic health problems including diabetes, high blood pressure, and HIV, as well as substance abuse and mental health problems”[10]. There seems to be no testing, vaccine or control plan in place.

As the pandemic continued, more warnings of the lack of action arose. On March 7, 2020, ABC News published an article warning that prisons and jails were potential destinations for COVID-19, noting that the “coronavirus suddenly exploded in China’s prison last week with 500 cases spreading across five facilities in three provinces.” ABC then detailed how “in Iran, 54,000 inmates were temporarily released back into the country amid virus fear.”[11] These actions showed us that we should be fearful of what it to come into American jails and prisons. It also provided us with a model for how to curb the spread here in Broome County as the virus would be less concentrated in one area and be able to spread so easily.  In April of 2020, right around the time the BCJ was deemed a hotspot, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health also issued an article sounding even more alarms and calling for decarceration to curb the spread[12]— unfortunately, Broome County did not respond or take any action.

The County Responds: Too Little, Too Late

Despite these national and international alerts on how COVID-19 would spread throughout correctional facilities, and calls for the release of inmates to curb the spread, local judges, district attorneys, and the sheriff resisted early releases for even those with short sentences—unlike practices in other counties across the state. Indeed, Sheriff Harder downplayed the potential dangers that were right around the corner. He confidently indicated in an interview with WBNG news that, “I think they are safer inside our facility because they are not out there in the community.”[13]

Sheriff Harder could not have been more wrong. In April of 2020, The American Journal of Public Health published an article, COVID-19 Exposes Need for Progressive Criminal Justice Reform, where it documented that “prisons and Jails are amplifiers of infectious disease.”[14] In response, three community organizations–JUST, Truth Pharm, and Citizen Action–protested outside the Broome County Jail calling for the early release of inmates. By December 2020, BCJ was considered a hotspot.[15] More protests followed in subsequent weeks to fight for the release of people who are not a serious danger to society.

Meanwhile, the Marshall Project reported that 1 in 5 of those incarcerated in state and federal prisons in the U.S. tested positive for COVID-19 compared to 1 in 20 in the general population.[16] This is an alarming statistic, and one can only assume that it is similar, if not worse, in the jail system, where the population normally cycles in and out on a regular basis. When COVID-19 hit, many persons in jails faced closed courts and were thus denied their constitutional right to a speedy trial. Individuals became stuck in the jail facing serious risk of infection.

 Sources who have had contact with those in the BCJ have reported what the conditions are like on the inside. The incarcerated face soap rationing, a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), and the inability to social distance. In dormitories persons sleep on bunkbeds, often one above another, on beds that are less than 3 feet apart. This, combined with the inconsistent wearing of masks by correctional officers, could be part of the reason why the jail became a hotspot in December 2020. COVID-19 protocols for the jail have also been insufficient to keep the virus out of the jail. The sheriff’s department has limited screening measures to temperature checks to keep COVID-19 out of the facility.[17] This is not a sufficient preventative measure, since more than 50% of all COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic.[18] Further, jails are not closed or controlled environments, which allows for more cases to move from the jail out into the community. Over 300 persons, staff and inmates, are reported to move in and out of the jail daily, allowing COVID-19 to cast a wider net into Broome County.

Comparative Timelines

A study conducted on the Cook County Jail, right outside of Chicago, IL, demonstrates just how dangerous this can be.  Using contact tracing, it was determined that the COVID-19 cases in the jail directly affected the case numbers in the surrounding community to which many correction officers and incarcerated return. While we do not have sufficient data to repeat the Cook County Jail study for Broome County, it does raise a lot of questions: Why were so many of the incarcerated infected? What would comprehensive testing and contact tracing have shown? Is it possible that corrections officers made the spread worse in the jail? Did incarcerated persons coming home without quarantine assistance, spread COVID-19 into the community? 

An investigation of case numbers in Broome County is telling.[19]  Data retrieved from the Broome County Sheriff Department suggests a similar case as in the Cook County jail. Tests from November 13-30, 2020, show that 12 out of 17, or 70%, of correctional officers tested were positive for COVID-19, an extraordinarily high rate. Then on December 2, 2020, 32 out of 39 inmates, 82%, tested positive for COVID-19.[20] It is important to note that from March 18 to December 1, 2020, there were only 16 out of 45, or 35%, confirmed positive tests for inmates. This trend is similar to the steep rise in COVID-19 cases in Broome County, pictured below, increasing by almost 5,000 confirmed cases over the month of December. Without contact tracing, as was done in Cook County, it is impossible to know whether the spike in cases in the BCJ contributed to the rise throughout Broome County, however, it is conceivable. During this spike, Binghamton University students were on winter break and not in the area, so they can be eliminated as the probable cause of the virus spreading during this time span.

Unfortunately, the lack of contact tracing in the BCJ, and the lack of transparency on all COVID-19 issues related to the BCJ and other congregate living facilities in the area, makes it impossible to have definitive proof of the routes of transmission.

 While looking through the BCJ data to find COVID-19 patterns similar to Cook County,[21] it became clear that earlier testing data from another FOIL received from the Broome County Health Department presented a significantly different picture than the Sheriff’s data.[22]  The Health Department provided only positive test results, failing to include, as requested, data on the total number of tests and negative test numbers. Why this was the case is puzzling. Did they not know how much testing was being conducted and what the positivity rate was? The Health Department was exclusively reporting positive cases rather than giving positive and negative tests, which are necessary to have to obtain positivity rates. It is crucial to know the positivity rate so that it can be compared to the larger population and chart the accurate story of what is happening on the inside.

This leads to many questions similar to those being raised regarding Governor Cuomo’s coverup of persons and cases flowing in and out of nursing homes during peak COVID-19 periods.[23] Why didn’t the health department want us to know positivity rates? Did they track cases from correctional officers, staff, and the incarcerated moving into and out of the jail?  The Broome County Health Department needs to be more transparent to protect both the community and incarcerated individuals; the vast majority of whom are awaiting trial: of the over 400 persons in BCJ in February 2021, only 37 were sentenced and serving their sentences in the jail.[24]

Taking the Vaccine

Although COVID-19 vaccines are now more accessible than ever before, there is still the critical issue of vaccine hesitancy. Why are many individuals deciding not to be vaccinated? There are many ethical issues that arise with vaccinating an incarcerated population. According to a bioethics scholar from Johns Hopkins University, consent is a big issue:  individuals who are incarcerated may have diminished autonomy and therefore cannot always give their full consent to being vaccinated.^[25] This does not mean that those who are incarcerated should not get the vaccine, the issue is that they do not have the ability to give their full consent as free persons outside can.

With vaccines now being offered to all those who are incarcerated, many think we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The truth is, COVID-19 exacerbated all the issues that are endemic to the criminal justice system created during past decades of mass incarceration, whether it is overcrowding, excessive and unjust bail laws, the poor treatment of incarcerated individuals, or the lack of medical care for those with mental health or substance use problems.

In July 2020, Dr. Fauci, warned that COVID-19 may never be fully eradicated.[26] This means that for the rest of our lives there is a potential for COVID-19 or a new communicable disease to erupt again in our jails.  This is a real concern due to reports from inside the jail that many have decided to refuse getting tested due to fears of being locked up in medical solitary and quarantine without adequate care–amplifying fears of an unknown vaccine, its side effects, and poor medical care.

Those hoping to leave the jail for better conditions in state prisons also are likely to refuse testing: someone who tests positive cannot be transferred out. This creates an incentive to not be tested. This matches trends across the state, where poor Black and Latinx populations have very high levels of infection. According to a report produced in January 2021, 34% of African Americans and 29% of Hispanics are vaccine hesitant.[27] When African Americans make up 39% and Latinos 19% of the correctional facilities’ populations,[28] that leaves many on the inside to be skeptical and potentially refuse the vaccine creating more opportunities for viruses to storm through again. On Tuesday, April 12, 2021, the CDC and FDA recommended that the use of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine be halted.[29] Since the J&J shot only calls for a single dose, it has been the primary shot distributed to incarcerated individuals because of the movement of people from one facility to the next. Additionally, JUST is the only organization known to provide educational materials for people in Broome County Jail. With falling confidence in the J&J vaccine, and information on the vaccines not being effectively communicated to those in the jails, skepticism will deepen.

Looking Forward:

What conclusions should we draw from this investigation? Despite longstanding state requirements and national warnings regarding the threat of pandemics from infectious diseases, local county officials, led by the local sheriff and the Health Department which have legal responsibility for medical care in the jail, failed to protect incarcerated persons, the jail staff, and the broader community. Public protest and commentary raised significant questions over testing, contact tracing, and jail medical procedures, only to be met by silence from public officials.  One source reports meeting the mayor of Binghamton at an indoor public event, days before the mayor tested positive for COVID-19—and this person found out only through media reports. When the Health Department was notified, they still did not conduct follow up contact tracing. Volunteers who visited the jail in March 2020 were never subjected to contact tracing despite notification to the Health Department.[30] We do not know if family and community members in daily contact with correctional officers and staff who tested positive were subjected to contact tracing, either. Existing health department data were dangerously incomplete. Sheriff Harder reported to the public that the jail was the safest place for persons to be, despite the high rates of positive COVID tests among both staff and inmates.

In conclusion, the county failed some of its most vulnerable residents, and at the moment we stand unprepared for the next and imminent pandemic. 

Daniel Gabel is set to graduate from Binghamton University in May of 2021 with a major in Human Development and a double minor in Education and Judaic Studies. Daniel is an intern for Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier (JUST), where he researches COVID-19 in the Broome County Jail.

 

Notes

[1] CBS News, “Hundreds of Inmates Test Positive as COVID-19 Rips through New York Prison,” accessed 9 April 2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-new-york-elmira-correctional-facility-outbreak/.

[2] New York State, Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, “DOCCS COVID-19 Report,” (April 12, 2021) accessed 14 April 2021, https://doccs.ny.gov/doccs-covid-19-report

[3] Federal Bureau of Prisons, “BOP: COVID-19 Update,” accessed 11 April 2021, https://www.bop.gov/coronavirus/.

^[4] Joseph A Bick, Infections Control in Jails and Prisons (California: Healthcare Epidemiology, 2007) pg. 1047

[5] Bill Martin, “Jail Protest Explodes, County Officials Dither and Deny – Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier,” 15 April 2020, http://www.justicest.com/index.php/2020/04/15/jail-protest-explodes-county-officials-dither-and-deny/.

^[6] Bick, Infections Control in Jails and Prisons pg. 1047

[7]https://www.governor.ny.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/NYS_COVID_Vaccination_Program_Book_10.16.20_FINAL.pdf

[8] https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-new-yorkers-30-years-age-and-older-will-be-eligible-receive-covid-19#:~:text=Beginning%20April%206%2C%20universal%20eligibility,eligible%20to%20receive%20the%20vaccine.

[9] Legal Aid Society, “LAS Files Suit to Secure New Yorkers in State Prisons Access to COVID-19 Vaccine,” The Legal Aid Society (blog), 18 March 2021, https://legalaidnyc.org/news/lawsuit-new-yorkers-state-prisons-access-covid-19-vaccine/.

[10] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/health.html

[11] Claudia Lauer and Claudia Long, “US Prisons, Jails on Alert for Spread of Coronavirus,” ABC News, 7 March 2020, https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/us-prisons-jails-alert-spread-coronavirus-69437696.

[12] Lindsay Smith Rogers and JH Bloomberg School of Public Health, “COVID-19 in Jails, Prisons, and Immigration Detention Centers: A Q&A with Chris Beyrer,” Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, accessed 11 April 2021, https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/articles/covid-19-in-jails-prisons-and-immigration-detention-centers.html.

[13] Josh Rosenblatt, “How the Broome County Jail Is Protecting Its Inmates, Staff from Coronavirus,” WBNG (blog), 25 March 2020, https://wbng.com/2020/03/24/how-the-broome-county-jail-is-protecting-its-inmates-staff-from-coronavirus/.

[14] Kathryn Nowotny et al., “COVID-19 Exposes Need for Progressive Criminal Justice Reform,” American Journal of Public Health 110, no. 7 (30 April 2020): 967–68, https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305707.

[15] Ashley Biviano, “Broome County Labeled Jail a “hotspot” but Officials Remain Silent on What That Means,” Press & Sun-Bulletin, 11 December 2020, https://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/public-safety/2020/12/11/broome-county-binghamton-covid-jail-hotspot-inmates-staff/3856851001/.

[16] Beth Schwartzapfel, Katie Park, and Andrew Demillo, “1 in 5 Prisoners in the U.S. Has Had COVID-19,” The Marshall Project, 18 December 2020, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/12/18/1-in-5-prisoners-in-the-u-s-has-had-covid-19

[17] Ashley Forstadt, “Broome County Jail Limits Movement Amid New COVID-19 Cases | WSKGWSKG,” 3 December 2020, https://wskg.org/news/broome-county-jail-limits-movement-amid-new-covid-19-cases/.

[18] Michael A. Johansson et al., “SARS-CoV-2 Transmission from People Without COVID-19 Symptoms,” JAMA Network Open 4, no. 1 (7 January 2021): e2035057, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.35057.

[19] The data from the FOIL from the Sheriff and the Health Department can be accessed at http://www.justicest.com/index.php/bc-jail-covid-data-foil/.

[20] One test was inconclusive and counted as a positive test.

[21] Eric Reinhart and Daniel L. Chen, “Incarceration and Its Disseminations: COVID-19 Pandemic Lessons from Chicago’s Cook County Jail,” Health Affairs 39, no. 8 (4 June 2020): 1412–18, https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00652.

[22] Supplied by Bill Martin, a member of Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier.

[23] https://nypost.com/2021/04/08/team-cuomos-nursing-home-coverup-was-even-worse-than-we-knew/

[24] New York State, Division of Criminal Justice Services, Jail Population in New York State, April 4, 2021, https://www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/crimnet/ojsa/jail_population.pdf, accessed April 11, 2021.  Most persons were awaiting trial or transfer to state prisons. On a more positive note, on Friday March 26, 2021, the elderly Black man who spoke out at great risk to himself was given his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine inside BCJ. This came at a time when the nation was close to opening the vaccine to the majority of the population and especially in Broome County, where COVID-19 vaccines are being given to anyone who is 16 and up.

^[25] Cohn, Master of Bioethics.

[26] Berkeley Lovelace Jr, “Dr. Anthony Fauci Warns the Coronavirus Won”t Ever Be Eradicated,” CNBC, 22 July 2020, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/22/dr-anthony-fauci-warns-the-coronavirus-wont-ever-be-totally-eradicated.html.

[27] Jagdish Khubchandani et al., “COVID-19 Vaccination Hesitancy in the United States: A Rapid National Assessment,” Journal of Community Health 46, no. 2 (1 April 2021): 270–77, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-020-00958-x.

[28] Prison Policy Initiative, Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner, “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020,” accessed 19 April 2021, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html.

[29] Nate Rattner, “Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Pause Makes It Tougher to Immunize Hard-to-Reach Populations against Covid,” CNBC, 17 April 2021, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/17/jj-vaccine-pause-could-make-it-harder-for-some-groups-to-get-a-shot.html.

[30] Personal communication from Bill Martin, March 2021.