In a week, three women cut themselves at NC women's prison

A prison spokesman says the incidents weren't suicide attempts. Two inmates described "horrible" bloody scene, say stress is high in bad conditions.

Posted 9:38 p.m. Jun 18, 2021 — Updated 11:47 p.m. Jun 18, 2021

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — Three women serving time at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women sliced themselves with disposable razors this week in a series of incidents two inmates described as bloody horrors.

A spokesman for the state prison system confirmed the incidents, but said the women "inflicted superficial degrees of self-harm." He said the incidents shouldn't be characterized as suicide attempts but as "acts of self-injurious behavior or acts of self-harm that were non-life-threatening."

"Their injuries were superficial in each case, although one offender was taken to an outside medical center out of an abundance of caution and returned to the prison a few hours later," Department of Public Safety spokesman John Bull said in an email Friday afternoon.

Bull said the women all gave different reasons for their actions. They were all housed in the same dorm, but in two different quads and "not in close proximity to each other," he said.

Two other women at the prison reached out to WRAL News via telephone Friday morning to report the incidents.

"Blood was everywhere," Sheayan McCoy said. "These people were looking lifeless."

"It's horrible here," said Ebony Covington, who's serving at least 18 years on drug trafficking charges.

Covington said she and and another woman had to pin down one of the people who cut herself, "because she was going for her neck." When they got the blade away, Covington said, “she started biting her arm where she had cut herself, real hard.”

Disposable razors are readily available in the prison commissary, Bull said. Covington and McCoy, who's serving seven years on an armed robbery charge, said prisoners sometimes break them down, removing the blades.

Covington and McCoy both complained of conditions at the prison, which is one of the state system's oldest. Among other things, large areas of NCCIW don't have air conditioning. Inmates have told WRAL News in the past that they've been told to paint over mold before inspections.

On Friday, McCoy and Covington repeated complaints about treatment from the staff and said stress levels are high in the facility.

The state's prison system is chronically understaffed, a situation exacerbated by the pandemic. Vacancy rates in recent years often topped 20 percent at some facilities, and the state closed three facilities last fall to reshuffle staff.

Five prison officials died in 2017 inmate attacks in Bertie and Pasquotank counties, spurring some changes. But when new Prisons Commissioner Todd Ishee joined the system in 2019 he offered a bleak assessment.

Among other things, Ishee told lawmakers that prison staff reported an average of two assaults a day.

Ishee said at the time that, in 2018, more than 35 percent of new correctional officers aged 20 to 29 left the job within six months.

State lawmakers have talked for years about boosting corrections officers salaries and implementing a new salary scale promising annual salary bumps, but so far, funding increases have been incremental.

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