NC prisons to expand quarantine program, despite concerns about conditions, legality

For months, a Durham motel has housed men being released from prison as part of a pilot COVID-19 quarantine program run by the N.C. Department of Public Safety.

Now, despite legal questions and complaints about conditions in the motel, the state plans to open a second location.

The new location will house women at a DPS facility in Black Mountain, in Buncombe County in the western part of the state, said Greg Thomas, a spokesman for the department. It previously housed a drug and alcohol treatment program for women on probation, he said.

Modeled on the Durham pilot program — which quarantines recently released men at the Quality Inn & Suites on Hillsborough Road — the facility will house women in quarantine for 14 days to ensure a safe return to their home counties. Thomas said DPS hopes to move the women in by the end of the month.

But the expansion comes amid criticism of the existing program. For weeks, volunteers from Rose of Sharon Catholic Worker have been raising awareness about problems they say the men at the Durham motel are having: unsanitary conditions, insufficient medical supplies, and ongoing fear of contracting the coronavirus.

And Friday, Emancipate NC, a project of the Carolina Justice Policy Center, released a letter questioning the state’s legal authority to detain released inmates in the Durham motel.

While it acknowledged the good intentions of the pilot program, Emancipate NC said it is concerned about the program’s “coercive nature,” and the conditions under which motel residents are detained.

Bedbug complaints, medicine shortages

As of Jan. 12, DPS said, 191 men had successfully completed quarantines at the Durham motel. The program houses men released from prison who have potentially been exposed to COVID-19 and who have nowhere else to safely quarantine. DPS said there were 83 residents on site as of Jan. 14.

The News & Observer was unable to speak on the record with men currently residing at the motel.

But Chrissy Nesbitt, a member of the Catholic Worker group, said residents have repeatedly said they can’t get medicine and personal protective equipment. And when she and other volunteers have tried to bring in supplies, she said, motel security has turned them away.

“These people have served their sentences,” Nesbitt said, stressing they’re supposed to be in quarantine, not locked up.

Complaints about the Durham motel were first reported by the INDY earlier this month. Residents described bedbug infestations and other unsanitary conditions, inadequate access to medication, and uncertainty over how long they would be held in the motel, according to the INDY and Nesbitt.

Thomas confirmed that, due to safety concerns, non-residents may not enter the property and asked that community groups work with DPS directly. He said all reports of bedbugs had been investigated by pest control, and no activity had been found. Residents get 3 ply masks and a bottle of hand sanitizer, and may request additional personal protective equipment, he said.

Legality questioned

“Our big question is just: Is it legal?” said Ian Mance, a staff attorney at Emancipate NC and one of the authors of its letter.

“You can’t rest this program on people agreeing to stay at the hotel if the circumstances by which they’re agreeing are coercive,” he said. “And it’s hard to imagine what could be more coercive than telling someone that they’ll be sent back to prison if they don’t agree.”

Emancipate NC noted in its letter that it had represented Reginald Cunningham, a released inmate who they say spent seven weeks at the Durham motel.

Cunningham managed to avoid contracting COVID-19 for the past year in state prison, only to test positive during his stay at the motel, the organization said. During his time in the Durham program, they say he was denied access to his prescribed psychiatric medicine beyond an initial 14-day supply, and was later arrested and re-incarcerated for “breaking quarantine.”

At the time of his arrest, Cunningham had been at the motel for more than five weeks — three longer than his intended stay. He has since been released.

According to Nesbitt, multiple residents have been detained for a month or longer.

These concerns were also raised in a letter written by Durham City Council Member Charlie Reece, which The News and Observer has obtained. Addressed to Mayor Steve Schewel and Interim City Manager Wanda Page, Reece said he had spoken with a resident of the motel who had been there longer than 14 days, and who felt as though he was still incarcerated.

Thomas said that as of Jan. 5 the average length of stay was roughly 18 days. He acknowledged that residents do remain longer than 14 days “if a home plan has not been identified and approved, or if the resident declines a potential placement and a new home plan has to be identified.”

He added that the men must get their parole officer’s approval to return to their home county without housing.

But Emancipate NC says DPS has no legal authority to confine residents to the motel beyond the first 14 days.

“A person’s homelessness, even during a public health crisis, does not vest the agency with any additional authority to detain them,” the organization wrote.

And Mance added, “it’s ambiguous, the authority to hold people even for the 14 days.”

Still, Mance said the organization supports DPS efforts to expand housing options for released inmates.

“We’re not aiming with this letter to shut down this hotel as a place where people can go stay and have a roof over their head during a pandemic,” he said. “This is an important moment in this program — because they’re going to be opening up other motels, and we’ve identified some real issues with the one they’ve already got. We want to make sure that these oversights don’t repeat themselves.”

When reached by the N&O by email Reece said while he is concerned about the complaints, he has no issue with the program’s expansion — providing the new location “is free from the sorts of problems with living conditions that have been raised [in Durham],” and “DPS can ensure that residents are free to leave after their 14 day quarantine period.”

He added that the program’s intended purpose “seems like a worthy goal.”

“I’ve been told that the vast majority of people who have gone through the pilot program have been successfully placed in permanent housing in their home counties at the end of their 14 day quarantine period,” he said. “Based on the possible alternatives, those seem like positive outcomes.”

But Nesbitt said the Catholic Worker group will continue “keeping the pressure on,” and working to assist those who reside in the motel.

“It strikes me as odd that they would expand it without working out the very deeply ingrained problems that are happening here,” she said. “If they can’t handle this in some sort of semblance of order, that takes people’s needs into account, then they have no business expanding the program.”

This story was originally published January 22, 2021 at 1:31 PM.