Louisiana prisons hastily plugged into resumption of family visits during coronavirus | Coronavirus

Louisiana prisons had been preparing for about a month to resume family visitation during Thanksgiving week, after suspending them eight months ago. But prison officials were quick to revisit those plans, saying family visits would no longer take place.

The prison system was concerned about the rising rate of COVID-19 infection among the free population of Louisiana, spokesman Ken Pastorick said. The rate of infection within the prison system has been lower in recent weeks, but officials concluded that it was not safe to bring more foreigners into prisons, he said.

The decision to change course was sudden. Pastorick said on the morning of November 19 that prisons would open to family visits, albeit on a restricted basis. Within two hours, he said family visits had been postponed again and he wasn’t sure when they would resume.

The prison system banned visits from relatives and lawyers on March 12 due to COVID-19. They had planned to resume family visits, in part because state retirement homes had already opened to some visitors. Relatives of prisoners said they heard directly from detainees that visits would resume for the holidays, although no official announcement was made.

Louisiana is one of 12 states where prison visits by lawyers and relatives continue to be suspended, according to The Marshall Project. Twenty-seven states allow “legal visits,” and 13 others have resumed “personal visits” on a limited basis, according to the website.

Prior to November 19, Louisiana was on track to prioritize family visits over lawyer visits, which would remain banned. Officials said they believed family visits would improve morale among inmates and staff, and that it would be especially difficult for inmates not to see loved ones during Thanksgiving week.

“It is important to maintain family ties while you are incarcerated,” said Natalie LaBorde, general counsel for the Louisiana Department of Corrections, in a recent interview. “When you cut that it really has an impact on people.”

But coronavirus infections and hospitalizations in Louisiana are increasing rapidly. The White House Coronavirus Task Force told state officials in mid-November that Louisiana should impose more COVID-19 restrictions to slow the local spread. The sharp rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations across the state came after plans to further open prisons were already underway.

“Back when we started with this plan three or four weeks ago, there was no peak” in COVID-19 cases, said Randy Lavespere, medical director of the prison system, on the 18th. November.

To prepare visitors, the Department of Public Safety and Corrections had compiled a list of guidelines and received plans from wardens on how individual prisons would handle social distancing visits and other COVID-19 protocols. According to the plan submitted, each prison should have stayed below a certain infection rate to qualify for family visits. A prison would only be allowed to welcome visitors if less than 0.5% of its population had been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Visits were supposed to take place dormitory by dormitory in individual prisons. Each dormitory would have had a time slot, and inmates should have met their relatives at the same time as others in their dormitory to discourage widespread mixing. Dormitories with one person who tested positive for COVID-19 were reportedly closed to visitors for 14 days.

Family visits still would not have looked like they were in pre-pandemic times. They would have been much shorter, only an hour. People should have been wearing masks, staying six feet apart and having a barrier between them. They were reportedly not allowed to eat during the visit, and there was reportedly no contact of any kind, which disappointed family members.

The types of people who can visit have also reportedly been restricted. It was reportedly limited to immediate relatives who were at least 14 years old. Only two people would be allowed to visit an inmate at a time.

Families with incarcerated people have had mixed reactions to the prison system’s decision to open visits on a limited basis. Some said they were planning to participate but it would be difficult not to kiss or touch their loved ones. Others feared it was too dangerous, putting inmates and their relatives at too much risk of catching COVID-19.

“For my part, I am not taking myself or my children,” said Dominque Jones, whose father has been in the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola for 40 years. Before the pandemic, she and her family tried to visit her father every Sunday.

“I understand wanting to go there, but I think they’re putting themselves in danger by going there,” Jones said. “My father tells me not to come.”