The Ohio Civil Service Employees Association representing prison guards remains concerned that not enough is being done to protect inmates, staff and guards at Ohio's 28 prisons.
Ohio prisons have been hard hit by the coronavirus since the outbreak began, with more than 4,000 testing positive and 38 inmates deaths. As a result, the prison system has come under fire.
"The virus has spread very quickly," says Chris Mabe, OCSEA President, "and the department has moved very slowly."
Mabe worked for more than two decades as a prison guard and says he began hearing new concerns from guards last week following a news conference where the prison system defended its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Corrections Director Annette Chambers-Smith says the department asked every facility to update its pandemic plan last February.
"We did tabletop exercises. We did begin to procure PPE," says Chambers-Smith, adding a commodities strike force was put into place to ensure that personal protective equipment was on hand to be appropriately shared until it could obtain more.
But Mabe questions both the planning and current status of PPE across the prison system.
"I think sitting around in a building doing table tops with administrative people instead of getting on the ground and talking to the officers and staff working in prisons has been the downfall of the plan put into place," says Mabe, who is calling for more PPE at facilities statewide.
The prison system has begun testing every inmate at Pickaway Correctional Facility, where at least 23 inmates and one staff member has died and at least 1,546 other inmates and 101 staff have tested positive, along with two other prison hot spots including Marion Correctional and a medical facility in Columbus.
As a result of all the testing, Marion and Pickaway counties have far and away the highest COVID-19 infection rates of any counties in Ohio.
Plus, Governor Mike DeWine announced last week that more than a million pieces of personal protective equipment are being delivered.
Other safety measures underway included sending surges of PPE to high-risk facilities and offering use of hotel rooms for guards instead of going home where they could infect families.
