A prison system tops in virus deaths starts reopening anyway

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio has lost more inmates to COVID-19 than any other state, but its prisons nonetheless must begin reopening to accommodate a slow return to business — and to crime, the prisons director said.

The department has begun accepting new inmates from jails again and must soon resume the normal process of transferring inmates when necessary, Annette Chambers-Smith, head of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said in an interview this week.

“We need to get to what is the new normal going to look like, what is this agency going to look like, and live with COVID,” Chambers-Smith said.

“The whole of the community is reopening, so when you reopen the community, you’re going to have more laws broken also,” she added. “So really when you restart the community, the entire process restarts.”

That's bad news for inmate advocates who have been arguing for the mass release of prisoners, though legal action could force changes.

Four inmates housed at three Ohio prisons — Marion, Richland and Allen — have sued to enforce social distancing, get access to cleaning supplies and raise the number of inmates being released.

“If the jails are already too full, and we need somewhere else to put people in the meantime, it absolutely should not be a prison facility,” said Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist for the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Ohio has released about 140 inmates early, including 11 female inmates who had babies while in prison and eight inmates whose clemency requests were granted, prison records show. That's out of a total population of more than 48,000.

Official figures show cases have appeared to slow in Ohio's 28 prisons, but a true picture is hard to get because the state has decided against...