Florida Halts State Prison Visits Due To Threat of Coronavirus

The Florida Department of Corrections has temporarily suspended visitation at all institutions as a precautionary measure, due to the COVID-19 coronavirus.

The FDC referenced a full statement via its official @FL_Corrections twitter page.⠀

“The safety of staff, inmates, and visitors is a vital priority for FDC. As a precautionary measure in response to #COVID19, visitation has temporarily been suspended at all institutions,” the tweet said.

In their statement, the FDC explained that this decision followed the state of emergency that was issued. However, Secretary Mark Inch stressed that there are no known or suspected cases of the virus in any of the facilities at this time.⠀

“Every month, FDC is fortunate to have more than 30,000 visitors from across the country enter our correctional institutions to visit their loved ones,” Inch said. “During this State of Emergency, it’s critical we take all precautions necessary to minimize the potential risk to the inmate population and staff charged with their care and custody. This decision has been made in close consultation with our partners at the Florida Department of Health and with correctional best practices being reviewed nationwide. We look forward to resuming normal visitation as soon as possible.”

The suspension will remain in effect until April 5th, 2020, and the decision to reinstate the normal visitation schedule will be evaluated in consultation with the Department of Health.