St. Clair County Jail inmates should have had masks months ago, IL Gov. Pritzker says
Local lawmakers and Gov. J.B. Pritzker said inmates at the St. Clair County Jail should have been provided masks long before Jan. 13 of this year, the first time jail staff administered them to detainees.
Their reactions follow a Belleville News-Democrat report citing more than 30 current and former inmates and their loved ones who said the jail failed to take other precautions to slow the spread of coronavirus. At least three jail inmates have died of COVID-19.
Health experts recommended masks as early as last spring to slow the spread of COVID-19. While the jail required staff to wear masks, “universal masking” guidance from state and local public health officials and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control doesn’t directly say inmates should wear them too.
Sheriff Rick Watson cited that guidance in explaining why they didn’t provide masks to inmates for more than nine months after they became readily available. He says staff did all they could to protect inmates through routine sanitization and screening techniques, and the jail’s public affairs officer said quarantining is difficult in a chronically overcrowded jail. Voters in 2017 rejected a tax increase proposal that would have paid for jail expansion and improvements.
Pritzker said the jail shouldn’t have had a problem supplying masks to detainees because personal protective equipment has been easily accessible to any state agency since shortages eased last summer.
“It’s just not something that should be happening literally nine months after we’ve had a reasonably plentiful supply of PPE in the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said.
While the governor said he wasn’t sure what caused the problem in the St. Clair County Jail, local legislators say they plan to find out. State Rep. LaToya Greenwood, D-East St. Louis, and state Sen. Chris Belt, D-Cahokia, said they will contact the sheriff’s office.
“This shouldn’t have happened. It was my understanding that there was plenty of PPE,” Greenwood said. “I was shocked.”
Reporters DeAsia Paige and Carolyn Smith contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 2:14 PM.
