If COVID-19 begins to circulate in Ontario’s cramped and overcrowded jails, correctional staff say they’re worried they won’t be able to stop it.

“We’re fearful that this will spread very fast and may become unmanageable,” said Ryan Graham, president of OPSEU Local 234, which represents correctional staff at the Maplehurst and Vanier jails in Milton.

His comments follow several days of work refusals at correctional facilities across the province in the face of what Graham says has been the Ministry of the Solicitor General’s lack of action on concerns from staff about potential outbreaks.

“Things are coming out very slowly from the ministry,” Graham said.

There are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in an Ontario jail, the ministry has said. So far, three inmates have tested negative, while the results for two other inmates were still pending as of Monday afternoon. The ministry would not say where these inmates are housed, citing privacy reasons.

Graham said staff have been insisting that anyone coming into an institution — whether an inmate, staff member or lawyer — should first have their temperature checked. But, he said, the ministry has refused. Graham also expressed concern about the lack of space to isolate an inmate, if necessary, in a jail like Maplehurst.

“We really, truly don’t have an isolation area,” he said. “We would be basically locking (the jail) down, confining them to their cells.”

On Friday evening, the province banned personal visits to Ontario jails, though lawyers are permitted to continue to meet their clients. (The province also banned personal visits to Ontario youth justice centres Monday.)

Ministry of the Solicitor General spokeswoman Kristy Denette said all visitors to Ontario jails are subject to screening procedures for respiratory illnesses, in line with health ministry guidelines.

Graham said the screening mainly involves asking people about their symptoms, noting that an inmate may be reluctant to say they have a fever for fear of being isolated, while a staff member may do the same for fear of missing work.

And even though in-person visits are now banned, the ministry said its current and much-criticized phone system will remain as is. Inmates can only place collect calls to land lines at a fee of about $1 a minute. Denette said the ministry is still working on completing the procurement process for a new inmate telephone system.

Denette confirmed that several correctional officers at the Toronto South Detention Centre briefly refused work last Thursday.

“As per the resolution process, the ministry worked quickly with the Ministry of Labour to address the situation,” she said. “It was resolved quickly with minimal impact on inmates and court transport.”

The following morning, one inmate testified from the prisoner’s box at College Park courthouse, saying he and others had been kept in the courthouse cells without access to food until about 8:30 p.m. He testified that he was told the guards weren’t letting anyone back into the South jail “because of coronavirus,” but he did eventually get taken back to the jail later Thursday evening.

Denette also confirmed there have been job actions at Maplehurst jail. Graham said he wasn’t able to provide details about this, but criminal defence lawyers reported Monday that there had been delays in prisoner transport to and from court.

In a bid to reduce the number of people in the jails and slow possible transmission of the virus, the province also announced Friday that it was allowing inmates who only serve sentences on the weekend to do so at home. But criminal lawyers have said more needs to be done to reduce the number of inmates — many of whom are legally innocent and awaiting trial — going to jail if they don’t pose a risk to public safety.

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“In light of the significant dangers posed by incarcerating inmates during a pandemic, the ministry needs to consider all possible forms of release,” said Daniel Brown, vice-president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association. “Most people incarcerated in jail don’t need to be there, especially at a time like this.”

Criminal defence lawyers have said that one way to reduce numbers in the jails is for Crown attorneys to consent to the release of more accused persons on bail.

At College Park court in Toronto on Friday, a Crown attorney said the Crown was now revisiting its position on bail in several cases in which the accused does not pose a risk to public safety. The Ministry of the Attorney General has refused to confirm whether a directive that has gone out to all Crown attorneys, province-wide.

A similar state of confusion also played out in Ontario’s courts Monday, a day after the Superior Court of Justice said it would suspend most of its operations as of Tuesday and the Ontario Court of Justice said it was severely limiting the number of people who appear in court each day.

In bail court and set-date court at Old City Hall justices of the peace heard that some inmates refused to come to court. Instead, they were seeking bail hearings and court appearances by audio and video — although the technical capacity to do this was still being worked out.

All out-of-custody criminal matters are postponed as a result of the courts’ near-total shutdown. Bail courts and other matters involving accused people in custody are expected to continue, although the court is attempting to do more by video and audio. Provincial offences courts are closed as well.

The shutdown has left court staff, interpreters and business-owners unsure about how they will be affected.

Sharon Hong, a cancer survivor who recovered five years ago, said she is unsure about whether she will close the small coffee shop she runs on the ground floor of the Old City Hall courthouse.

Hong said there were far fewer customers on Monday than usual at the typically packed downtown Toronto courthouse, and it is unclear what will happen with the rent she pays for the café space.

Even handing food and coffee to customers is unnerving now, she added. She said she is even afraid to wear a mask as a precaution for fear that people will think she is sick, and because of the racism she worries will be directed at her as an Asian woman.

“I am scared,” she said. “I have never seen anything like this before.”