HALL: We know from family members in Goose Creek that they were not wearing masks, that staff were refusing to wear masks. TREINEN: Angela Hall runs a weekly support group for inmates' family members. We meet or exceed the CDC's recommendation on detention.ĪNGELA HALL: There's a real disconnect between the DOC administration and what is actually happening in the facilities. And he says the department has strict standards for sanitation and masking. Hough says that can be explained in part by the Corrections Department's aggressive testing program. TREINEN: Alaska's COVID-19 rates in prisons are 75% higher than the national average, according to the Marshall Project, a criminal justice reporting group. I can tell you that the - there are several people that argue that we're doing too much. JEREMY HOUGH: I can't think of anything that we should be doing more than we already are. TREINEN: The Department of Corrections doesn't have control over the court systems operations, says Jeremy Hough, who oversees correctional facilities. GARVEY: When the prison is overcrowded, where people have reported being in a gymnasium with more than 10 other people, it's really hard to maintain health Garvey says that means Alaska's jails are filling with inmates who haven't been convicted of a crime. The crowding has only been made worse by the hold on in-person jury trials due to the pandemic. It didn't release older or sick inmates early in the pandemic. He says the state has done little to address the prison system's long running problems with overcrowding.
TREINEN: Michael Garvey is with the ACLU of Alaska. MICHAEL GARVEY: They have not done nearly enough to mitigate the harm and spread of COVID-19 inside Alaska's prisons. And an unknown number could suffer lingering effects of long-haul COVID-19. TREINEN: Three people died at the prison. TREINEN: Eventually, more than a thousand of the prison's 1,400 inmates were infected.īOYD: And he said, who knows, if you catch it, what's going to happen to you? She remembers talking to him as infections grew from dozens to hundreds.ĭIANE BOYD: He said, I know I committed a serious crime. Diane Boyd's husband is serving a 99-year sentence there for a triple homicide. LEX TREINEN, BYLINE: The Goose Creek prison outside Anchorage got hit with COVID-19 in October. Alaska Public Media's Lex Treinen reports. But one area that's a serious concern are prisons, where nearly half of all inmates have tested positive. Alaska has a lower COVID-19 case rate than most states.
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