By Chelsia Rose Marcius
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — As New York continues to see a surge in coronavirus cases, criminal justice groups are urging the state to drastically ramp up testing within its prisons.
The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision finished testing the entire prison population by late November, officials said. As of Wednesday, the agency has tested more than 35,877 in state custody, with another 183 tests pending.
Yet the department needs to test much more frequently in order to prevent Covid-19 from wreaking havoc within the prison system, said Alexander Horwitz, executive director of New Yorkers United for Justice.
“Without immediate re-testing of the incarcerated population and a new approach to combat COVID-19, [the department] risks the safety of not just all incarcerated New Yorkers, but also their employees, their families, and communities throughout the state,” said Horwitz, whose nonprofit has tracked prison data throughout the pandemic.
“It’s clear that the agency’s current approach will lead to more COVID-19 outbreaks at their facilities and continue to put public health in jeopardy.”
The agency tests prisoners who show symptoms of the virus as well as those flagged through contact tracing — including people who are asymptomatic, Corrections Department spokesman Thomas Mailey said. It has also implemented an asymptomatic surveillance testing plan, which includes testing people from different housing units at every facility each weekday.
Correctional officers and other staffers who don’t show symptoms of the virus can request tests from their personal doctor or at one of the state’s testing sites. Those identified through contact tracing are told to quarantine.
But a recent outbreak at Elmira Correctional Facility and several other prisons means the state needs to do more to stop the virus from tearing through facilities — starting with its staff, said Katie Schaffer, director of Advocacy and Organizing at Center for Community Alternatives.
“That is a wildly insufficient staff testing policy,” Schaffer said. “[The department] should have the same testing policy for staff that nursing homes do: all staff, twice a week.
“I’m glad that nine months into the pandemic, [the agency] is finally testing asymptomatic people in a routine way. [But] I’d like to see the full policy,” Schaffer added, noting that they’d like to know how many people are being tested each day.
Just over 1,800 people behind bars have tested positive for the virus since March, state data shows. Of those, about 1,680 have recovered. Twenty-two people — including state prisoners and parolees — have succumbed to the disease.
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