Jails and prisons within the state of Arkansas were ravaged by COVID-19 during the late spring and summer months of 2020 as the congregate settings made community spread of the highly contagious virus easy.
Civil rights groups including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Disability Rights Arkansas and the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of nearly a dozen inmates last April, according to the Associated Press. At the Cummins Unit in Gould, Arkansas, nearly a third of the inmates at the state prison contracted the coronavirus in late April 2020.
Yet reports of an influx of COVID-19 cases are unheard of at the Columbia County Detention Center, where multiple measures are in place to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, including the vaccinations of staff and inmates within the facility.
“We offered them (the inmates) the opportunity to be vaccinated about two weeks ago,” said Sheriff Mike Loe, adding that about 10 of the 52 inmates currently housed in the county jail opted to receive the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
One effort Loe said could be taken to combat the coronavirus is to write a policy requiring all employees to get the vaccination, with exemptions for those who cannot take the vaccine for religious or health reasons. Loe said that he does not have any plans to create such a policy, but noted that it was a trend that has begun taking place at other locations across the country.
Loe declined to state how many employees took the vaccine, citing their privacy.
Isolation of new inmates is one measure the jail has taken to reduce the spread of the virus. Once a person is put in jail, they are placed in an isolation cell for 10 days before they are allowed to enter the general population.
The coronavirus has also changed which offenders are booked in the jail.
“We are trying not to book anybody unless it’s a violent offense to keep the jail population down,” said Loe in February, “That was following recommendations from our attorneys in Little Rock.”
According to the Sheriff’s Office website, the jail is able to house up to 78 men and 12 women, including individuals that have been arrested for misdemeanors and felonies and inmates that have been sentenced to the Arkansas Department of Corrections.