California inmate wrote down names of maskless guards after COVID order. Did prison do enough?

A Northern California prison failed to seriously investigate an inmate’s complaints about correctional officers ignoring an order to wear face coverings during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report from the state Office of the Inspector General.

The report details how an inmate at an unspecified Northern California prison wrote a letter complaining of 19 instances in which prison staff, including guards and psychiatric technicians, failed to wear a mask as required by an Oct. 27, 2020 California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation order .

The inmate kept detailed notes, containing dates, times, descriptions and names of staff not wearing masks between Nov. 18 and Nov. 29, 2020, according to the report.

The inmate’s claim triggered an internal investigation that concluded his complaint was “deemed not sustained at this time,” according to the inspector general report.

But the inspector general found that investigation to be “biased and woefully inadequate.”

For example, the inspector general wrote the lieutenant who led the investigation did not ask any witnesses about the specific instances the inmate described. Instead, the investigators asked general questions about staff and “focused on gathering information to exonerate staff members.”

“What we find most troubling, however, is the conclusion that there was ‘no evidence’ to prove staff members did not comply with the face covering order. This is not true. The incarcerated person who submitted the letter spelled out 19 specific incidents of staff members not wearing face coverings and noted the specific places and times of those incidents. That is evidence,” the report read.

The inspector general wrote that it contested the lieutenant’s investigation by raising it with with a department undersecretary. The inspector general also urged the corrections department to discipline employees.

“Nevertheless, the undersecretary confirmed the decision to not take any action against the staff members who committed misconduct. Interestingly, following the inquiry, the warden instituted a policy ordering that for any staff member observed not wearing a face covering, management would immediately issue a letter of instruction. A letter of instruction is a form of corrective action, not disciplinary action,” the report said.

In a letter responding to the report, Department Secretary Kathleen Allison wrote that the prison handled the complaint appropriately and affirmed that a claim like the inmate’s likely would not have led to discipline for state employees.

“If this inquiry had established proof of masking violations, the hiring authority would have appropriately taken corrective action to change the employee’s behavior,” she wrote, meaning the warden would have advised staff to wear masks rather than discipline employees.

As a result, Allison wrote, the complaint did not need to be referred outside of the prison chain of command, as the inspector general had urged.

Allison added in her response that just because the inmate provided dates and times of the alleged mask violations, “providing dates and times in and of itself is not always sufficient evidence to open an internal affairs investigation.”

“While the letter is evidence and the details add credibility to the incarcerated person’s statement, treating any single accusation as the only source required to establish reasonable belief is not appropriate,” Allison wrote.

COVID-19 tore through California’s 35 state prisons over the past year and a half, infecting more than 49,000 incarcerated people and killing 224. Almost 17,000 California prison employees have tested positive for COVID-19, and 28 have died.

The Office of Inspector General after the coronavirus outbreak launched several special reports on how prisons handled COVID-19 cases. It previously described how a “deeply flawed” inmate transfer in May 2020 contributed to a serious outbreak at San Quentin State Prison.

This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 6:45 AM.