Hand sanitizer can be used for nefarious purposes, say prison officials who ban it
It’s good enough for them to help make and distribute during the coronavirus pandemic, but some prisons still consider hand sanitizer “contraband” when it comes to inmates in crowded facilities thanks to its high alcohol content.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization say that hand sanitizer is one of the most effective ways to battle coronavirus, but Texas jails and prisons are still on the fence when it comes to distributing it to inmates. Officials believe that it “can be used to start fires or make a sort of ‘moonshine,’ ” according to CBSDFW.com.
While some Texas prisons have been selling non-alcohol-based sanitizer in their commissaries, the CDC recommends using hand sanitizer with “greater than 60% ethanol or 70% isopropanol” to kill the virus that causes COVID-19.
In Nebraska, CNN reported that a half-dozen inmates were turning vats of ethanol into 2,500 gallons of hand sanitizer for a wage of $1.08 an hour.
Yet, prisoners aren’t allowed to keep a bottle on their person because it could be used for opprobrious actions according to department policies, CNN says.
“They have the capability to protect us, but they are failing to do it,” Ryan Kubik, an inmate at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, said to CNN. “People are going to die in here.”
While 30 correction departments are following the CDC guidelines and are allowing inmates to have their own alcohol-based hand sanitizer (or are dispensing it to them in a more controlled way), 17 state corrections departments — including “six of the 10 with the largest inmate populations” according to CNN — are maintaining their bans for now.
States including Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia are providing free soap and other toiletries to inmates along with stressing the importance of maintaining their hygiene during the coronavirus pandemic — especially when it comes to washing hands.
In an Associated Press report released on April 29, over 70% of tested inmates in federal prisons were positive for coronavirus.
“Even though officials have stressed infection and death rates inside prisons are lower compared with outside, new figures provided by the Bureau of Prisons show that out of 2,700 tests systemwide, 2,000 have come back positive, strongly suggesting there are far more COVID-19 cases left uncovered,” the AP report said.