Staff at the Prince William County Adult Detention Center now have to do jail laundry, filling in for several inmates in isolation amid a COVID-19 outbreak. The rash of infections has sickened 40 inmates and eight staff members, and forced a third of jail residents into quarantine.

The outbreak has raised tensions between the public defender’s office, which is pushing to release inmates awaiting trial who are susceptible to infection, and the jail superintendent, who says he is following all health guidelines and managing a health crisis effectively. The incident underscores how jails continue to be hotbeds of infection despite every effort to contain the pandemic.

“We take a lot of precautions here,” said ADC Superintendent Col. Pete Meletis. “We think we’ve got a pretty good system … It’s very difficult to figure out where it’s coming from.”

Meletis told DCist/WAMU he noticed a rise in infections in December. By late January, he said, multiple units of inmates were sent to quarantine, including the group that does the laundry. He said all the quarantined inmates would likely be released by Feb. 19, provided they did not test positive.

Infections are rising even as the jail follows CDC guidelines, Meletis said. All new inmates are quarantined for two weeks upon arrival, and anyone exposed to a positive COVID-19 case is also quarantined. Other measures include stopping inmate programs, reducing non-essential movement, and supplying jail residents and staff with masks. Further, he said 100 inmates have been released early to prevent the spread of disease since the start of the pandemic. He said his jail started vaccinations last week, with 150 inmates vaccinated so far out of 572.

Yet critics say there are unintended consequences to those protocols.

Tracey Lenox, the public defender for Prince William County, said she trusted that the Adult Detention Center was following state and national guidelines for health. However, she said the health precautions are creating conditions that “border on inhumane.”

“They are in isolation, and in something that definitionally can be considered solitary confinement because people are locked down for 23 hours a day, and that takes a serious toll on anyone’s mental health,” she said. Further, she said she got “lots and lots of reports” from inmates that they were going for extended periods of time without showering or getting clean clothes.

Meletis said the jail was following state requirements for inmates to get at least two showers a week, which he said was more difficult as officers retrieved inmates in quarantine and led them to showers one at a time to avoid infection. He said quarantined inmates received daily medical checks.

“People say solitary is inhumane, but in reality, we are keeping [inmates] from getting it, we’re keeping staff from getting it, and we’re keeping them from spreading it to other people,” he said. “It’s not for punishment, and they get commissary and other things, but we don’t call it inhumane.”

The Virginia Department of Health did not reply to questions from DCist/WAMU about whether the Prince William County Adult Detention Center is meeting state requirements for health in jails.

Lenox said the outbreak was particularly troubling because so many of the inmates are awaiting trial, and are thus legally innocent of any crime. Meletis confirmed that roughly half the inmates were awaiting trial, with others awaiting sentencing, serving sentences or were held for violating probation.

“Our position in the Public Defender’s office is that every single person who is not clearly a danger to the community or for other reasons ought to be held, ought to be released,” Lenox said.

Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Amy Ashworth wrote in an email to DCist/WAMU that since March her office has been committed to keeping the jail population as low as public safety allows.

“Whenever possible, our prosecutors support the release of arrestees and alternatives to incarceration for those who do not pose a danger to the community or a flight risk,” she wrote. “Ultimately, it is up to the Court to decide whether or not to allow the release of an individual.”

In March, an expansion of the prison is slated to open, which will have 204 regular beds and a 20-bed mental health unit, Meletis says. That should help contain the spread of disease by allowing for more distancing, he says.

In the meantime, Lenox says she planned to keep pressing for early release for non-violent offenders, especially those with medical vulnerabilities.

“We’ve made a point in the last couple of weeks to go through all of our files. Every single person is getting reviewed in the Public Defender’s office,” she says. “If the person already had a bond motion before, we’re bringing it again on the basis of the fact that the jail has an outbreak right now and conditions have deteriorated.”