BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

CANTON -- St. Lawrence County Correctional Facility inmates may soon be making masks to be worn by corrections officers and inmates at the jail.

SLC Sheriff Brooks Bigwarfe said that to county legislators during the board’s Monday, April 20 Operations Committee meeting held online via Zoom.

He said the mask-making program would be voluntary, and he started looking into it after a CO made and brought in masks for other COs. If they have the capability, they would also be made for emergency responders, Bigwarfe said.

“Our staff were already wearing them, and the inmates are all supplied masks,” Bigwarfe said.

“We can get some materials from donations, and try to make some masks that way,” according to the sheriff. “If we can get that program going, I think it would be a great thing.”

He said he wants to get it up and running “in the next couple weeks.”

As of April 20, Bigwarfe said there are 50 county jail inmates and no confirmed cases of COVID-19 among inmates or staff.

“Everything’s been going smooth,” he said.

They’ve also adopted some social distancing measures to help prevent the disease from getting a foothold in the correctional facility. He said that includes “feeding the inmates in platoons, things like that.”

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