NEVADA VIEWS: Virus puts Nevada prisoners at high risk

William “Cowboy” Fodor is 60 years old and recently recovered from hepatitis C. He has hypertension, arthritis and diabetes and has survived two bouts with cancer. He is terrified he won’t make it to his September parole eligibility date. Fodor has served 13 years as a habitual offender for possession of stolen property and possession of a stolen vehicle.

Fodor was transferred to Stewart Conservation Camp in Northern Nevada several weeks ago. Until he is assigned a job, he watches the news and reads, keeping up on the progression of the coronavirus outbreak. He knows what all the experts and politicians say about how the virus is spread and who is most vulnerable. He knows that he is in the vulnerable category.

Fodor watches his fellow inmates leave for jobs in the community, the compost factory and the ranch and sees them return to the camp. Recently, a group of his fellow inmates were called out on a fire crew. In normal times, the flow in and out of the camp would break up the time and bring news from the outside. Now every inmate who returns is a threat, a potential carrier of the deadly virus.

The Nevada Department of Corrections has posted flyers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention around the facility. “Wear a mask in public.” No inmate has a mask. Only some guards wear them. There is no hand sanitizer.

The evening news tells Fodor how important it is for him to “socially distance” himself from others. The doctors and scientists and politicians tell him that this practice is particularly important for anyone older than 50 with underlying medical conditions. They tell him that failure to do it could kill him. He must sleep in a 6-man “cube” in a dormitory consisting of 12 “cubes.” Social distancing with 72 men in one room is impossible.

Fodor knows that any of his cube-mates could pick up the virus on the outside. There is no quarantine for the inmates who work in the community. He is not reassured by the seeming lack of confirmed cases in the prison system. After all, Director Charles Daniels told the Sentencing Policy Commission on April 13 that there are only 15 COVID-19 test kits for 13,000 inmates. None of them has been used, so it is not surprising that there are no confirmed cases.

Fodor is no angel. He has a lengthy criminal history. In his words, he has “burned a lot of bridges.” But he has children and grandchildren, and he hoped to repair some of those bridges. He was a journeyman electrician on the outside and is confident that he’ll get employment when he is released. He’s terrified that he won’t live that long.

— Franny Forsman is a former federal public defender for Nevada.