Inmates return to their dormitories after lunch at Deerfield Correctional Center, in Southampton, on Wednesday, November 20, 2008. The center has equipped itself to house and care for a large number of geriatric inmates.
As of Monday evening 1,141 of Virginia’s nearly 30,000 prison inmates had tested positive for COVID-19 and six inmates had died, according to the Virginia Department of Corrections.
The department’s website shows that 12 inmates remain hospitalized while 590 prisoners currently have the virus — the rest who tested positive have either recovered, been released or died.
Meanwhile, more than a month after Gov. Ralph Northam’s budget amendment was passed by the General Assembly and the Department of Corrections was authorized to release offenders with a year or less to serve on their sentences, 208 have been released from prisons and 18 from jails.
Inmates eligible for early release must not have committed capital murder or a violent sex crime, have an approved place to go and have been deemed to be at low risk of re-offending.
According to the Department of Corrections website, facilities that have been hard hit by COVID-19 include:
- Buckingham Correctional Center, 112 cases;
- Central Virginia Correctional Unit #13, 57 cases;
- Deerfield Correctional Center, 78 cases;
- Dillwyn Correctional Center, 321 cases;
- Greensville Correctional Center, 186 cases;
- Haynesville Correctional Center, 246 cases;
- Sussex II State Prison, 68 cases; and
- Virginia Correctional Center for Women, 45 cases.
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