May 6. 2020 Dear Governor Pritzker, While we applaud your administration and the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) for steps already taken to protect prison workers, incarcerated individuals, and communities, we believe more could be done. Individual correctional centers must be more transparent to save lives and ease burdens on the families of those who are incarcerated. Officials are not providing enough information to assess the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in these facilities. While case counts are provided on the IDOC website, that information does not indicate how much testing is being conducted at facilities, nor does include the number of hospitalizations and deaths. We write to ask for both more expansive reporting of IDOC data, which is under your direct authority, and also for data from county jails, which, while not directly under your authority, have almost uniformly abstained from public reporting, putting communities at risk and depriving family members and lawyers critical information with which to make decisions about their loved ones. Better understanding how widespread the pandemic is in prisons, which can only be assessed through broader testing and data reporting throughout all prisons and jails, will allow you and your team, IDOC, county boards, county sherrifs, and wardens to make better decisions and to keep more people out of harm's way. As you have done at Stateville Correctional Center and Sheridan Correctional Center, and as is currently being attempted in Cook County, resources can be directed to the facilities and units most at risk. Our hypothesis based on current data provided on the IDOC website, and more notably, on data that is not being reported by either IDOC or county authorities, is that testing is not being conducted at adequate rates system-wide to stay ahead of the virus. The New York Times reported that 70 percent of the incarcerated individuals at one Ohio prison have tested positive for COVID-19. That report follows mass testing inside the prison, something we haven’t seen evidence of outside of Stateville Correctional Center and the Cook County Jail. We need more information, and more testing, so we have a better understanding of how many people in each prison have been exposed to the virus, and so that the numbers of cases are analyzed and acted upon in the context of testing rates. As you and Dr. Ezeke have stated repeatedly during the crisis, prisons and jails are congregate settings. We know the virus will travel quickly when it’s in a facility. At a recent press conference, you acknowledged the similarities between prisons and long-term care facilities. “They are congregate settings where large numbers of people eat, play, live in the same space. Being able to maintain distances is challenging. Once it’s introduced, it’s easy to spread. A lot of the strategies we employ in longer-term care, we also employ in correctional facilities,” you explained. That is why daily testing reports from IDOC are so confounding. There are several facilities, including Hill Correctional Center and Menard Correctional Center, that have had a small number of cases hold steady over weeks. We receive daily reports from those same facilities that hygiene and distancing protocols are not consistently followed. Given that, it seems unlikely that case numbers continue to be so low. We need to treat prisons and jails more like long-term care facilities. Moving forward, please ensure that the IDOC reports a robust and accurate assessment of each prison in the state, and please ask county sheriffs to provide the same information for their jails. Each day, that information should include: 1. The total number of incarcerated people and staff tested for COVID-19, including positive and negative tests. (Not currently provided by either IDOC or most counties) 2. The number of incarcerated people and staff who test positive for COVID-19. (Reported at IDOC but in only 7 of 102 counties) 3. The number of incarcerated people and staff hospitalized with COVID-19 or COVID-19 symptoms. (Not reported by either IDOC or most counties) 4. The number of COVID-19 deaths at or connected to each facility. (Not reported by either IDOC or 102 counties) 5. A definition of the criteria used to count someone as recovered (as is being listed on the IDOC website). Other states are providing this information. Here’s everything ​Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation & Correction​ is reporting daily. Here’s what the ​California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation​ provides. In addition to more detailed reporting, we know that you are working to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to people in prisons and jails with confirmed cases of COVID-19, as is happening at long-term care facilities. Reports on the adoption and use of PPE by staff and incarcerated people indicate that even facilities with adequate PPE are not seeing consistent proper use of it. If training is already provided, we believe the only way to ensure compliance with proper PPE use is via spot-checks from external actors, such as the Illinois Department of Public Health or the National Guard, and that an approach to non-compliant facilities should be similar to what you have reported employing in the cases of “bad actors” at long-term care facilities. We support your strong efforts to keep our state safe, your daily commitment to transparency, and your constant reminders that every life in Illinois is worth saving. Prisons and jails are entwined with families, vendors, and hospitals across the state. We, the undersigned, want to work with you to keep those communities safe and healthy, but we cannot help effectively without a clearer understanding of the spread of the virus in these facilities. More transparency will help us to help you better respond to this pandemic. 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