CLEVELAND, Ohio — On  April 3rd, U.S. Attorney General William Barr ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to expedite the release and transfers of vulnerable inmates due to the coronavirus.

Barr identified three federal prisons that were to be treated as priority. One of them was Elkton Federal Correctional Institution in Colombiana County,a facility that American Civil Liberties Union Senior Staff Attorney David Carey says has been slow to make changes.

“One of the worst prisons in the federal prison system, in terms of the impact of the coronavirus was Elkton, which is the federal prison in Northeast Ohio that had seen by the time we got involved there were actually already three deaths from the coronavirus, “ said Carey.

The ACLU represents multiple inmates currently serving sentences at Elkton— sentences that Carey says could be served in places better suited for social distancing. 

The organization sued the Bureau of Prisons on April 13. Days later, U.S. District Judge James Gwin ordered the staff to begin the process of identifying those who were 65 and older and most susceptible to illness—a decision  that the supreme court recently refused to block.

“The prison doors are not being thrown open, no one is simply being dumped out. It's a matter of transferring them to places where they can be safe," Carey said.

Carey says the Bureau of Prisons has identified over 800 Elkton inmates who fit the “medically vulnerable” criteria.

“We are told that as many as 80 more people have been deemed eligible for home confinement. We think that that's still very problematic given that there are 837 people, at least, on the list who are medically vulnerable, but it's certainly a step in the right direction. And of course it's really important to remember throughout this whole thing, Elkton is a low-security prison. everyone in there is already low security, and no one is being deemed eligible for home confinement unless they have a minimum or low risk of recidivism,” said Carey.

Carey says under the Federal CARES Act, the prison board has the authority to grant home confinement. They can also transfer inmates to safer facilities and grant temporary furloughs or compassionate releases— something Stephanie parks of Flint Michigan is hoping is granted to the father of her child, an Elkton inmate who tested positive for COVID-19 last month.  

“They sent him to the hospital. When he got there they tested him there and told him that he had it, and the next day he went on a ventilator. He did the vent for about 12 or 13 days, he literally was off two days, and they sent them back to the prison. He wasn't even there a full 24 hours, they had to send him back to the hospital. When he goes back, they tell him that he has pneumonia in both of these lungs," Parks said.

Elkton houses more than 2,300 low-security inmates. Carey says as of this week, over 300 of them have tested positive for the coronavirus. Parks says she fears her child's father will die if he stays in Elkton and says his compassionate release request has been expedited and hopes to know next week if it is granted.

“It’s devastating to know that they don't care, and I feel they don’t care because they're prisoners, you know, I feel like it's not, that's not fair. It's not fair to the families. It’s not fair to them,” Parks said.