Press release from the N.C. Department of Public Safety:
Prisons’ leadership continues to consolidate some of its operations to help mitigate the surge of COVID-19 in North Carolina and its impact on the prison system.
This allows the temporary reassignment of staff to prisons in need of additional medical and security personnel to handle COVID outbreaks.
As a result, operations at the minimum custody camp at Marion Correctional in Marion were temporarily suspended on Dec. 9.
Around 70 offenders were tested for COVID-19, tested negative, and were transferred to other prisons while 22 staff members were reassigned to work at the main prison on the Marion Correctional campus.
“I am grateful we have such a dedicated, hard-working staff who help out their colleagues as we continue to battle this first-in-a-century pandemic,” said Todd Ishee, Commissioner of Prisons. “They are heroes.”
The impacted offenders were transferred without a major incident to other prison facilities of appropriate custody levels. Stringent COVID-19 medical transportation protocols were used in transferring the offenders to their new prison assignments.
Also, the offenders were transported in cohorts, or groups, that did not mix with each other and were placed in medical quarantine on arrival to their new prison assignments without contact with the general prison populations at those prisons.
This is the latest consolidation of prison operations due to the pandemic. Other actions can be found in this Nov. 25 press release: https://www.ncdps.gov/news/press-releases/2020/11/25/prisons-temporarily-suspends-and-consolidates-some-facility
These actions were taken after careful consideration and were necessary for the safety, health and security of the staff, offenders and the public, said Ishee.
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