Some of the biggest COVID-19 outbreaks of Texas have been in jails and prisons, and they rapidly spread to nearby communities. Since the widespread of the virus, observers have started to ask if "prisons are doing enough to protect the prisoner staff, inmates, and even the public."

Within the walls of this state's prisons swarming with COVID-19, information about its spread remains limited, and people working and locked up inside are frightened.

Specifically, at Beto Unit, a massive prison outside of small-town Palestine, about a hundred miles Southeast of Dallas, dozens of employees and inmates have tested positive for COVID-19.

Based on the department's reports, the inmates have been locked in either their dormitories or cells for weeks as officials try to contain it.

However, more men become more infected, and prisoners and their relatives believe the contagion is much greater than the numbers which the Texas Department of Criminal Justice indicated.

Scared to Tell the Officers They're Ill

In a letter sent to his mother, an inmate at Beto who asked not to be identified said people are afraid to tell the officers that they are ill as they "say they are not doing much" to help them. The sick people, the prisoner, added, are using common showers the healthy people use, as well.

This is the reason, according to the letter sender, why he opted "to take a birdbath," a term used in prison to describe when washing out of a sink of the prison cell.

The mother, recipient of the letter, said, this is "pretty hair-raising." Incidentally, her son has already been granted parole. However, he is required to complete an in-prison program first. Now, the worried mother wonders if her son will ever get to come home.

More than 1,600 Confirmed Cases and 25 Deaths

The same report has it that COVID-19 is fully entrenched in the prison system of Texas, confirming to infected over 1,600 employments and inmates at several units.

Around 25 infected inmates and employees of the Texas prisons have reportedly died. However, like the rest of the state, the scope of the spread of the virus behind bars remains mostly unknown due to limited testing.

As of Saturday, TDCJ was able to test roughly 1,700 symptomatic prisoners for the infectious disease. From this figure, this was only about one percent of the population in prisons, the department said.

More than 70 percent of these tested inmates turned positive with COVID-19. This is an astonishingly high rate compared with the state in general, where less than 10 percent of the comparatively small number of Texans tested positive with the illness.

According to epidemiologists, there is a need for more testing in prisons as they are said to be, "incubators for disease," which can threaten not just the staff and prisoners, but the communities surrounding the prisons, too.

Some Prisoners' Early Release

The COVID-19 policies of TDCJ have developed during the pandemic. When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared a statewide disaster in March, he instructed the penitentiaries "to cancel all inmate visitations."

Then, after the occurrence of the virus in multiple units and the first inmate's death reported early last month, the department began lockdowns for two weeks at all prisons where an individual had tested positive.

While on lockdown, inmates are generally kept in their prison cell sans the recreation. They are also fed sack meals, and a couple of days after, TDCJ ceased from accepting new prisoners from the county jails.

While several advocates and lawmakers have commended the department for how it tackled the multifaceted, constantly changing crisis with inadequate resources, inmates' loved ones, as well as the federal judge, oppose that rank-and-file employees do not frequently follow the protective measures implemented by the prison officials.

Experts in infectious disease and the advocates of prison rates say there is so much more that needs to be done, beginning "with mass testing of prisoners and reduction of the overall population in prisons."

Early release of prisoners, which would include elderly prisoners qualified for parole, those close to completing their sentences, and the people who have already been granted parole but are still in jail, is said to be a decision that falls to the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole and Gov. Abbott.

None of the two though, has specified any plans of doing so. Following the argument that freeing more inmates could result in a spike in crime, Gov. Abbot came out opposing more releases from the ongoing lockups.

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