CLEVELAND, Ohio — U.S. Attorney General William Barr has ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to speed up its efforts to place some prisoners on home confinement to reduce the risk of coronavirus spread at facilities with outbreaks.

The attorney general singled out several facilities to prioritize, including the sole federal prison in Ohio where two inmates have died of the coronavirus.

Barr wrote a memo Friday, first reported by Politico and posted with the story, that noted the bureau has “significant levels of infection” at several prisons, including the all-male Federal Correctional Institution Elkton in Columbiana County.

The prisons bureau said three inmates - ages 53, 65 and 76 - have died there, and all three are suspected to be related to the coronavirus. Seven inmates and two staff members have tested positive for the virus as of Saturday, though the union official representing guards has decried a lack of testing at the prison.

The attorney general directed the bureau last week to start using home confinement for certain inmates at risk of serious illness associated with the coronavirus. Friday’s memo ordered prison officers to immediately look at all inmates at risk, prioritizing those at Elkton and prisons in Louisiana and Connecticut.

“Given the speed with which this disease has spread through the general public, it is clear that time is of the essence,” Barr wrote in the memo. “Please implement this Memorandum as quickly as possible and keep me closely apprised of your progress.”

The Elkton prison grounds, which are about 100 miles southeast of Cleveland, consists of a facility that houses 2,040 male inmates, with a satellite facility that houses more than 400. Among those serving time there are former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora.

Prison staff must immediately process inmates eligible for home confinement and move them to another facility to quarantine for 14 days, though some may be moved to their homes, Barr wrote.

“It is vital that we not inadvertently contribute to the spread of COVID-19 by transferring inmates from our facilities,” the memo says.

Advocates have warned that prisons are particularly vulnerable to outbreaks of the coronavirus, as it involves inmates who live in close quarters with many common areas.

Federal prison officials imposed a two-week lockdown starting Wednesday to further prevent the spread of the virus.

Barr also noted that the prisons bureau doesn’t have many resources to electronically monitor inmates on home confinement, and the U.S. Probation Office cannot monitor everyone released. As a result, he said prison officials can move some inmates to home confinement even if they can’t electronically monitor them, as long as they feel it is safe to do so. While releasing inmates is important, so is protecting the public, he wrote.

Ninety-one federal inmates nationwide had tested positive for the coronavirus as of Friday, along with 50 staff members. Seven inmates have died. Along with three in Ohio, five came from a federal prison in Louisiana.

Prison officials moved 522 inmates to home confinement following Barr’s orders from last week, Politico reported.

Federal law previously said prison officials could only place inmates on home confinement if they had 10 percent of their sentence or less than six months left. The coronavirus stimulus bill that Congress passed gives those officials more latitude if the attorney general declared that emergency conditions warranted it, and Barr did so in Friday’s memo.

Read more:

Second inmate dies at federal prison in Ohio as coronavirus rips through lockups

Federal prison in Ohio, where Jimmy Dimora is doing time, reports coronavirus cases among inmates

Coronavirus got 900 inmates out of Cuyahoga County’s troubled jail when inmate deaths didn’t. Some say the changes should stick