State Prisons Plan Early Release of 3,500 Inmates to Combat Coronavirus

California’s top prisons official has ordered almost 3,500 inmates released early, according to a filing Tuesday in federal court, to thin populations in the overcrowded system in hopes of preventing or slowing an outbreak of COVID-19.

The expedited releases are for those with fewer than 60 days left on their sentences, who were not convicted of violent crimes, sex crimes or domestic violence offenses.

“These non-violent inmates will either be released on parole, released to community supervision or directly discharged,” Ralph Diaz, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation secretary, wrote in a legal filing.

He added that inmates released under the plan “will have appropriate release and transition plans” in place. Releases are scheduled to begin “as soon as practicable, including within the upcoming days and weeks,” the filing says.

Attorneys for inmates called it a positive step but insufficient to address the threat.

“We need a far more significant plan for population reduction,” said attorney Michael Bien, who brought a long-running civil lawsuit that brought improvements to mental health care for California’s more than 120,000 inmates.

Bien filed an emergency motion in federal court last week warning that the coronavirus posed a threat to all people in California’s 35 prisons, but especially to older inmates or people with chronic medical conditions who often live in crowded dorms.

He said the response from state officials doesn’t address that population.

“The most significant thing that's missing is no effort at all to identify and release the medically vulnerable who are most at risk of contracting COVID-19 and having bad outcomes,” Bien said.

A special panel of three federal judges is scheduled to hear arguments on the emergency motion and the state’s response on Thursday.

A total of eight inmates have confirmed cases of COVID-19 — six in Los Angeles County state prison, one in the California Institution for Men in Chino and one in the North Kern State Prison. The prison system reports testing 251 inmates for the virus as of Wednesday.

As of Wednesday, 25 staff members from 11 institutions had reported confirmed cases of the respiratory illness. The highest concentration of staff cases, 11, are from the Chino facility.

State officials have already suspended public visits to prisons, limited transportation between institutions and started screening employees for fevers using infrared technology.

In papers filed in court Tuesday, attorneys for California argued against a mandatory prisoner reduction.

They proposed additional measures to reduce exposure among inmates, such as the transfer of hundreds of asymptomatic people out of dorms at three of the state prisons to penitentiaries with more space.

The state argues that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s March 24 executive order to stop the intake of new prisoners combined with the routine release of people who’ve served their sentences would result in 3,000 fewer inmates in the prisons each month.

“California’s already swift and unprecedented response to the crisis obviates the need for the further judicial intervention into and micromanagement of the state’s prison system,” the filing says.