As COVID-19 races through Kentucky’s prisons, one in five inmates has been infected
One in every five of the 10,165 inmates housed in Kentucky’s 14 state prisons has been infected with COVID-19 since March, with state data showing active outbreaks this week involving nearly 800 people at five different prisons.
“The news from the corrections front is not good,” said J. Michael Brown, secretary of Gov. Andy Beshear’s cabinet, during the governor’s Monday afternoon news conference.
So far, 2,028 state inmates and 281 prison employees have been infected by COVID-19, state data shows.
The biggest problem at present is Lee Adjustment Center, a privately owned prison in Lee County that the state uses to house inmates. State data shows that 474 state inmates — out of a population of 754 — and 29 employees are infected with the novel coronavirus at Lee Adjustment Center.
“Our fear, quite frankly, is that we haven’t finished testing that facility,” Brown said. “This was alarming. It seems as if each time we get one facility under control, much like the rest of the state, it breaks out someplace else.”
Other state prisons with active outbreaks Monday included Blackburn Correctional Complex in Lexington, with 47 infected inmates and four infected employees; Bell County Forestry Camp in Bell County, with 46 infected inmates and eight infected employees; Kentucky State Reformatory in Oldham County, with 27 infected inmates and six infected employees; and Little Sandy Correctional Complex in Elliott County, with 122 infected inmates and nine infected employees.
Overall, the Kentucky Department of Corrections reports that 13 inmates and two employees have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March.
To reduce the population behind bars, Beshear this year issued several executive orders granting early release for hundreds of state inmates who were considered medically vulnerable to COVID-19 or who were nearing the end of their sentences for nonviolent crimes. Other state inmates sued to be released early in order to avoid catching the deadly virus while housed in a prison, but a federal judge blocked that attempt.
Apart from state prisons, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons on Monday reported relatively small numbers of active COVID-19 infections at federal prisons in Lexington, Ashland, Inez, Manchester and Pine Knot. Nine inmates have died from COVID-19 this year at the federal prison in Lexington.
