Sedgwick County Jail inmates start wearing masks, jail population drops by about 400
The coronavirus pandemic has led to some changes at the Sedgwick County Jail, including fewer inmates and mandatory masks.
A new directive from the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office requires inmates to wear masks, and masks have started showing up in mug shots.
Three jail inmate photos in Monday’s booking report showed inmates wearing masks amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
“All arrested individuals are given a mask and required to have a mask prior to being booked,” sheriff’s office spokesman Lt. Tim Myers said by email.
The requirement was implemented on Friday, about a week after the first case of COVID-19 was identified at the jail.
Sheriff Jeff Easter announced on April 2 that one detention deputy who worked at the jail had tested positive for coronavirus. At the time, a second employee was presumed to have the virus, and an inmate had also been tested after showing symptoms.
Myers said Monday that he has not received new information about any inmates or employees with the coronavirus, other than the one deputy previously confirmed to be infected.
Since coronavirus concerns heightened in Kansas last month, the jail’s population has declined. People continue to be arrested and booked into jail, but booking reports have noticeably fewer arrests by area police officers, sheriff’s deputies and state troopers.
The detention center in Wichita is the largest jail in Kansas. The facility can hold 1,406 inmates. There are 575 single beds, meaning most of the inmates are in bunks or in a dormitory where the beds are a few feet apart — less than the 6 feet recommended for social distancing.
The district attorney said last month that prosecutors, defense attorneys and the sheriff’s office were working to release certain inmates on bond to give the jail “breathing room” during the pandemic.
In the past month, the jail’s average daily population is down about 400 inmates. The sheriff’s office had custody of 1,262 inmates on Monday, down from 1,657 on March 13. Inmates held out of county are included in the average daily population.
Two inmates in Monday’s booking report had their masks pulled under their chins when having their pictures taken. A third was wearing his mask on his face, but his photo is an example of how not to wear a mask. Both the mouth and nose should be covered with a mask with no gaps between the mask and the face, according to the World Health Organization.
In the state prison system, a Kansas Department of Corrections facility in Wichita has had one inmate test positive for coronavirus. The inmate was housed at the Wichita Work Release Facility, but he was one of 113 people transferred to Lansing Correctional Facility on Sunday.
“The newly reconstructed building at Lansing provides us the ability to isolate these residents, while also keeping them separate from the current residents of the old Lansing facility,” the department’s secretary, Jeff Zmuda, said in a statement.
The Lansing prison has had 18 inmates and 21 staff contract the virus.
The prison system on Thursday started distributing cloth masks to staff and residents at all facilities in the state, Zmuda said last week in a memo to residents.
“The first masks will go to the Lansing facility because of the current positive cases there, and as production numbers increase to match the need, masks will be distributed to other facilities and parole,” the KDOC secretary said in the memo. “Priority will be determined based upon positive resident cases, or the greatest potential for positive cases. Based on the current rate of production, we estimate all facilities and parole offices will have the masks in the next two to three weeks.”
