PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania inmates are now making cloth masks and other COVID-19 prevention items for the Department of Corrections employees and prisoners. The inmates are working 12-hour shifts, six days a week to make the items.

“As part of the Department of Corrections preparedness planning, in mid-March, I directed all of our employees and inmates to wear masks,” said Pennsylvania Corrections Department Secretary John Wetzel. “We didn’t want to take from the community supply, so we began making the masks in-house at several of our state prisons.”