Sizing up comp for COVID-19 on the inside

The plight of essential and health care workers has dominated the news this year, but the effects of the pandemic and civil unrest on workers in jails and prisons in the U.S. has largely gone unreported. 

Correctional officers and jailers have one of the highest rates of injuries and illnesses of all occupations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the pandemic and its related effects are likely to lead to an even greater uptick in workers compensation claims in 2020, experts say. 

In the U.S. there are more than 2.3 million incarcerated individuals, and the institutions that house them act as “a powerful transmission multiplier” of COVID-19, according to a spring study released by the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. Even without the pandemic-related stressors, the rates of depression, anxiety, PTSD and suicide are at least 40% higher among correctional staff than police officers, the researchers found. 

Since March, thousands of the more than 450,000 correctional officers in the U.S. were infected by COVID-19, according to research from the Justice Action Network, a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates for criminal justice reform. In Texas, which employs more correctional officers than any other state, 23% of COVID-19-related workers compensation claims filed in the state’s workers comp system came from correctional officers and prison workers, and a quarter of the state’s total fatal coronavirus comp claims were among those workers, according to a study from the Texas Workers Compensation Research and Evaluation Group. 

“Correctional officers have died from COVID-19, and there’s pressure on the staff with screening, testing, quarantining, keeping inmates and their quarters clean,” said Gary Cornelius, retired corrections professional and current adjunct professor in criminology, law and society at George Mason University. “The job is stressful, it’s full of dangerous unknowns.”

“With correctional officers, very few people would doubt that they’re exposed to trauma on a daily basis,” said John Hanson, Atlanta-based vice president at Alliant Insurance Services Inc. “(With the pandemic), they can’t socially distance, the exposure to COVID is extremely high. If you take past studies of PTSD, add the pandemic, as well as riots, you’re only increasing the rate of behavioral health issues within those correctional facilities.” 

Six states have included correctional officers among those who are presumed to have caught COVID-19 on the job and qualify for workers compensation benefits, according to the National Council of State Legislatures. 

In Minnesota, for example, correctional officers are considered public safety officers and are included in the state’s COVID-19 presumption, which came in the form of a law that took effect in April. Correctional officers were also roped into the state’s post-traumatic stress disorder presumption for first responders; a law which took effect Jan. 1, 2019. 

“We’ve had some staff pretty significantly impacted by COVID, and one of them had to be hospitalized on a ventilator for a considerable period of time,” said Paul Schnell, the corrections commissioner for the State of Minnesota. “But it’s a fairly small amount of (total) workers comp claims.”

However, the pandemic and quarantining requirements have placed strain on staffing levels, which in turn can expose correctional officers on duty to greater risk of injury or assault, he said. And assaults have been linked to mental trauma, according to multiple sources. 

“Sometimes the injuries can be really significant, long-lasting and permanent — it speaks to the fact that we really need to do all we can to be fully staffed,” Mr. Schnell said. 

The State of Tennessee has only accepted a few COVID-19 claims from correctional officers so far, but had there been a presumption, “I think it would have been very costly for us,” said Rodney Escobar, the state’s director of the division of claims and risk management.

PTSD claims where correctional officers end up going out on disability for long periods tend to be the bigger issue, Mr. Escobar said. 

“Being a former correctional officer, I’ve seen assaults on officers in the past and know how devastating that can be,” Mr. Escobar said. “I can understand why people would have issues coming back to work.” 

The stress from the pandemic and civil unrest has led to a 30% surge in correctional officers requesting therapy, said Nancy Bohl, director of The Counseling Team International, a San Bernardino, California-based provider of critical incident intervention and counseling to first responders, including correctional officers. 

“They’re frightened and worried about their families … they’re worried that they might have exposed their families,” she said. “And it’s not just COVID. It’s the defund the police, the vilifying of them, no matter what uniform you have on, you’re a target.” 

In Minnesota, Mr. Schnell is focused on creating a culture of support and recognition of the challenges staff face.

“We’re learning more about the impact of PTSD and repeated ongoing exposure to trauma,” Mr. Schnell said. “As a result, as employers, we’re trying to be more responsive, in part because we want to do right by our staff, but also the real interest in reducing our liability.”