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One of the problems that we have had in this country is the level of abuse that an inmate receives while in jail. Inmates have rights and they are, often, violated. This occurs all over the nation. This discussion is not about whether they should or should not be arrested or kept in jail. This is not about non-violent offenders. This is not about drug offenses. I have limited this to “County” due to the fact that there a number of those who have not been convicted of anything yet. What needs to occur in these facilities to stop abuses (including suicides, rapes, beatings)? Are you willing to pay more for a more educated staff? Are you willing to educate the staff that is already present?
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In its July report, the Justice Department said the Holding Center and Correctional Facility failed to correct serious problems even after other agencies warned of them for years. The Justice Department called the effort by Howard's Jail Management Division "woefully inadequate" and said it has led to a "pattern of serious harm to inmates, including death."
In describing the beatings, the investigators said Holding Center deputies beat inmates in a special elevator chosen because it has no security camera.
U.S. sues county over alleged jail abuses : City & Region : The Buffalo News (http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/813398.html - broken link)
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One after another, people told lawmakers horror stories about their time behind Erie County bars. Some say they were deprived of medicine and basic necessities and denied visitors for months. Some say they were beaten, mocked and kicked. But the most disturbing testimony came from Tibet Hafii. The young woman says she was raped by a deputy late one night. When she called for help, Hafii says she was dragged to a basement cell and kept in isolation and taunted for ten days.
And then there is Maricopa Counties very own Sheriff Joe Arapaio, where a catalog of abuses in articles can be found here . One of the most outrageous acts to have been committed most recently was the death of Juan Farias. He had “a number of seizures“ after entering the facility, he was given Dilantin where the side effects can be hearing voices, confusion, and hallucinations and released back into the general population. Further, he was an American citizen but only spoke Spanish and he could not have understood the directives of the guards. He was brought in on a warrant for violation of probation for a DUI. There is an article in the above link that details this man’s death, the investigation and information regarding the missing information on the video tapes that were released. What this man’s family was told was that he died of natural causes.
For those of you unfamiliar with the blog kept by Shaun Attwood called Jon's Jail Journal he documented the cockroach problem and the intentional abuse the Sheriff is so proud of.
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Mark and I have used six tubes of AmerFresh toothpaste and six ounces of Razorless Beard Remover cementing cracks in the walls. The cockroaches still flood our cell every night and I have awoken numerous times this week to observe my hair stood on end and a cockroach crawling on my body. I previously considered my apelike fur coating as one of nature's cruel jokes, but now I have discovered it to be a useful defensive shield against verminous insects. My upright hairs must seem like an unwelcoming forest to the little foragers.
Ex-convicts (and by my opinion, als current convicts) basic democratic rights are totally trampled on with the voting laws in many states.
Prison is big business. Its money is corrupting our system like many other businesses.
Last edited by bluebeard; 10-05-2009 at 10:40 AM..
Thank you for raising this point. I absolutely agree with you, and I have long held penal reform as one of my political priorities. An unacceptable percentage of Americans who are incarcerated have not yet been tried for any crime, and are denied freedom for no other reason than that they have been accused. In Illinois (and probably elsewhere), the legal definition of the constitutionally guaranteed "speedy trial" is 210 days, during which many accused remain behind bars.
Incarceration is a growth industry in this country, (maybe the only one we have) and the privatization of incarceration has led to unregulated abuse in the system. In Boscobel, Wisconsin, one prison was forced to improve conditions, when a federal lcourt ruled quite bluntly that in America, you simply cannot do that to human beings.
"Many of the severe conditions serve no legitimate
penological interest; they can only be considered punishment for punishment's sake." The court
identified some of the super-maximum features that were particularly damaging to inmates with
serious mental illnesses, including the almost total and relentless isolation and sensory deprivation as
well as the lack of programming. It noted that one of the plaintiff's experts considered the conditions at
the supermax so restrictive and debilitating that they "border on barbarism."
I agree this is a problem and I think something should be done about it. The difficulty is that inmates in jail (guilty or not guilty of anything) are not a very powerful political constituency. They'd have no rights at all if it wasn't for the courts. If county governments could get away with it they'd be leasing inmates out to private companies and keeping the wages they earn. They wouldn't provide medical care and they certainly wouldn't allow themselves to be sued for violating an inmate's rights.
Its a tough situation and it illustrates that sometimes judicial intervention is necessary because the political system simply fails to protect the rights of some people in some situations.
I won't bore you with all the details, but I know a woman whose husband "bought" her a car, never made the payments, the car got listed as stolen, she was arrested driving it, and spent 9 days in jail for "possession of stolen property", which was plea-bargained to the equivalent of shoplifting, with a $500 fine. Oh, by the way, her fine was reduced by $5 for each day she spent in jail, which is how much the court thinks days of your life are worth.
I have been, let me tell you, its not fun. I hear a lot of people saying things like, "These inmates have it great, three hots and a cot, and they don't have to do anything. They even get TV"
Well let me tell you, that is not always the case. I was arrested for driving on suspended license, because I didn't show the state of TN my proof of insurance after a traffic ticket I had 2 years earlier. They didn't even ask me for the proof, and I had it. The case was thrown out in court, but I was still arrested for it. I got no notification from the state, I had no warning, I didn't know what I did. Thats just one example of how you can get screwed and end up in county.
You are thrown in a little room, thats overcrowded to say the least, and you are given a pallet to lay on. Good luck finding a spot to put it down.
I was lucky, I had bail money for all of my stints in jail, and the longest I ever stayed in was for a night. It is not an event you want to repeat. Those guys are treated worse than cattle I've seen in the slaughter house. Filthy conditions, everyone walks around coughing because they are sick with the damp, diseased filled air in there.
I think anyone who writes prisoner policy, should have to spend a week in jail.
Its hard not to notice that most of the guys that are in there, were in there for selling drugs. Hell they were throwing 18 year old kids in for selling a dime bag of pot with killers, KILLERS! Thats just insane. I had a buddy of mine who was caught drinking and driving get thrown in with the sex offenders. I mean hell, I don't like what he did, but he was in real danger of being raped. Those guards can't see in those rooms, there is just a little sliver of a window.
I remember two guys wanted to fight. So they gave up their shoes, and then went to the end cell, closed the door, and proceeded to kick each others asses. The guards didn't know, or didn't care. I was scared to death. All for something I had no control over.
Not everything that you can get arrested for is apparent.
They just throw everyone together.
A big city jail is different then some small town jail where its mostly pot holders, drunks, and traffic people.
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