NC to offer inmates incentives to get COVID shots. Will new plan stem deadly tide?
Hoping to halt COVID-19’s lethal march through North Carolina’s prisons, state officials said Friday they will offer earlier releases and other incentives to inmates who agree to get vaccinated
Their plan comes as the state Department of Public Safety is providing hundreds of inmates and prison employees their first shots.
DPS currently is giving the vaccine to prison healthcare workers, staff members who work near infected inmates and employees and inmates 65 and older.
Since the voluntary vaccinations began inside the prisons on Jan. 20, about 1,800 of the roughly 29,000 inmates in the state prison system have been vaccinated, state Prison Commissioner Todd Ishee said. Last week, prison officials offered the vaccine to inmates 75 and older, and more than 90% of those prisoners agreed to get shots, Ishee said.
This week, the vaccine was offered to inmates in the 65-74 age range. Ishee said about 70% of inmates in that group have signed up for shots so far.
About 2,800 of the state’s 14,000 prison employees — roughly one in five — have also been vaccinated so far, Ishee said. The North Carolina National Guard has helped with that effort.
The shots come at a deadly time. A total of 42 state prison inmates have died due to COVID-19 — more than half of them in the past three months. At least seven staff members have also died. The majority of the inmates who died were over 60.
More than 8,800 inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus so far — almost one of every four tested. More than 3,200 staff members have also tested positive, also about one in four. Of those, about 460 remain out of work.
North Carolina is one of at least 16 states now distributing vaccines to inmates, according to data compiled by the COVID Prison project, a group of public health scientists tracking the spread of COVID-19 in prisons and jails.
Under North Carolina’s new incentive program, eligible inmates who get both shots before Dec. 31 will receive sentence credits that will allow them to leave prison five days earlier, Ishee said. More than two thirds of the state’s inmates are eligible for such sentence credits.
The inmates who aren’t eligible for sentence credits will be provided a different incentive: a $5 credit for the purchase of snacks and other items from prison canteens. All inmates who get vaccinated will also receive four extra visits from family members and friends, along with a free 10-minute phone call.
In the weeks ahead, when the vaccine is made available to younger people in the state, more inmates will also become eligible for the shots and the incentives.
“We believe that we’ve put together a high-impact package that is going to support the health of our offender population, and also the health of our staff and their families,” Ishee said at a press conference Friday.
Like North Carolina, Virginia and Delaware are also offering incentives to inmates who get vaccinated. In Virginia, officials announced earlier this month that those prisoners will receive free credits for communicating by email and telephone, along with “care packages” filled with snacks and other items.
Vaccine for prisoners controversial
Elsewhere, prison vaccination programs have generated fierce debate, with some contending that inmates should not receive doses before members of the general population.
In Colorado, prisoners were recently moved out of a priority tier after the governor and others objected.
“There’s no way (the vaccine) is going to go to prisoners … before it goes to the people who haven’t committed any crime,” Gov. Jared Polis told reporters in December.
Others, however, have noted that prisons are breeding grounds for infectious diseases like COVID-19, largely because inmates live so close together.
“By any reasonable standard, incarcerated people should rank high on every state’s priority list,” wrote an editor for Prison Policy Initiative, a group working to reduce mass incarceration. “The COVID-19 case rate is four times higher in state and federal prisons than in the general population — and twice as deadly.”
When outbreaks occur inside prisons, they can endanger people on the outside, too. That’s because prison staff members can carry the virus to their families. So can some of the 2,000 people who are released from North Carolina prisons each month.
Dr. Arthur Campbell, medical director of the North Carolina prisons, said the push to vaccinate inmates is largely about protecting the public.
“We really see our mission as public health and public safety,” Campbell said. “You cannot consider the prisons in a vacuum.”
Ardis Watkins, executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina, said she has spoken with employees in other states that have not yet begun vaccinating prison workers.
“As we stack up to other states, I think we’re doing very well,” Watkins said.
Earlier in the pandemic, Watkins said she heard from many employees who were hesitant to get vaccinated. That’s begun to shift, with more employees now saying they are willing to get shots, she said.
Watkins and others view that as an encouraging sign.
“I urge everyone to get vaccinated,” Ishee said earlier this month. “This is our best shot to protect the health and safety of our colleagues and their families as well as the men and women in our custody. Science has thrown us a lifeline. Everyone should grab a hold.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2021 at 11:40 AM.
.JPG)