Credit: Tom Sofield/LevittownNow.com
The Bucks County Correctional Facility is seeing a surge of COVID-19 cases.
The Bucks County Department of Corrections inmate report from the end of November showed 578 men and 109 women behind bars at the facility in Doylestown Township. As of Wednesday, county officials reported 121 COVID-19 tests were conducted and 42 positive cases confirmed, including 21 staff members, in December.
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“The infected inmates appear to be confined to two units at BCCF,” county spokesperson Larry King said.
“As a result of the infections, all in-person programs and visitation have been suspended, with only attorneys and essential contractors and vendors allowed inside. Attorneys may visit via video as well. The suspension of visitation has been posted on the county website,” King noted.
The community correction centers did not have any recent positive cases, officials said.
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Sources with knowledge of corrections department operations and families of inmates have told LevittownNow.com that there are attempts being made to physical distance in the facility and keep up with masking, but the general idea behind imprisonment does not always mesh with COVID-19 mitigation measures.
Correctional officers who spoke on background have said that cases have been brought into the facility by both officers and those being detained. One also said that the spring and fall surges at the facility have lagged behind countywide surges, which recently started rising after Halloween.
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Since the pandemic began, Bucks County has seen 128 positive COVID-19 cases among correctional staff and inmates. There have been no deaths of inmates or staff due to the novel virus.
Locally and nationally, prisons and jails have been sites of COVID-19 outbreaks largely due to their communal setting.
News organizations The Marshall Project and the Associated Press released reporting this week that one in five prisoners in the U.S. has had COVID-19, while that number is one in 20 for the general population. The reporting found that more than 1,700 inmates have died due to COVID-19 and is likely an undercount.
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