Nationwide, since 1993, at least 64 children died and thousands were injured while being restrained in face-down and other methods. About half of the restraints that caused deaths were unnecessary, a review of restraint deaths by Cornell University Residential Child Care Project found.
Cornell's trainers, who have worked with Parmadale, teach both the face-up and facedown techniques as a part of their Therapeutic Crisis Intervention system but warn neither is safe. Facilities choose which methods suit their philosophy. Some choose never to use restraints.
"Every single restraint assumes a certain level of risk, including death," said Michael Nunno, the project's principal investigator. "You never want your intervention to be more risky than what the child is doing."
According to the coroner's ruling, Faith was restrained after an "outburst of disruptive behavior."
Faith had been tossing things around her room and may have approached the staff aggressively, said Parma police and Parmadale officials.
That type of behavior alone is not enough to restrain a child, Nunno said.
Workers often get into power struggles with kids they supervise, especially if the atmosphere in the facility is chaotic. Staff involved in such struggles should remove themselves from dealing with the children, he said.
According to police records and other sources, the situation in Parmadale's Cottage 14, where Faith lived, was particularly tense.
In the days leading up to her restraint, several children escaped, one stole a car, a child-care worker was injured by a teen and -- just before Faith died -- another girl in the cottage was beaten so badly, she was taken to the hospital.
People can be trained and tested over and over, Mullen said, but in the heat of a situation, it's hard to maintain control of an agitated child who is struggling with staff.
"What people need to understand is that these are interactions between humans," he said.
Bellefaire JCB in Shaker Heights, which also treats troubled children, uses restraint as a last resort, said Jeffrey Cox, clinical director.
"For us, disruptive is not enough," he said. If a child were to punch a staff member and walk away, that would not be a restraint situation because the immediate danger would be over, he said.
When restraints are used, the child's vital signs are carefully monitored, and children are not left alone immediately after being restrained, Cox said.
Faith was allowed to rest on the floor after she was released from the restraint, and workers later discovered her breathing was shallow. Parmadale staff lacked access to life-saving measures such as an automatic defibrillator to try to restart her heart.
The number of restraint-related injuries in Ohio is unclear because no agency collects the data. Information about major incidents, such as deaths or serious injuries, is supposed to be reported to the agency or agencies that license a facility. But that information is not shared.
In 2006, the Ohio Association of County Behavioral Health Authorities, an umbrella group that includes county mental health boards, pleaded for the creation of a statewide system to report child injuries in facilities.
The report pointed out that thousands of restraint-related injuries each year, including rug burns, black eyes, bloody noses and broken teeth, are not required to be reported. It concluded that fear of liability and the potential of losing facilities, which are already in short supply, were reasons that reforms were not being pushed.
"We tinker around the edges, but nobody is biting the bullet and fixing this problem," Cheri Walter, CEO of the group, said at the time.
Asked this week if any changes had been made since the 2006 paper was printed, Walter said, "Frankly, nothing has changed."
But now, officials are facing the death of a 17-year-old.
"It's unfortunately taken kids' deaths to prompt these kinds of changes," Nunno said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CBS 5 Investigates: School 'Quiet Rooms' Continue Advocates Push For Restraint And Seclusion Law Changes
http://cbs5.com/investigates/Quiet.Rooms.kids.2.898717.html (Click on the link to watch the video)
Reporting Anna Werner
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) ― Holding school kids down to the floor or closing them in so-called "quiet rooms" are practices advocates say can have dangers for the children and should be reduced or even eliminated.
But they're still allowed under California law, despite those advocates' efforts.
Naomi Liron says of her son, "He came home with three big pinch marks on his arm."
Liron says her 11-year-old son Reuben sustained injuries at school, like bruises on an arm, a rug burn on his face and emotional pain.
"He was depressed, very anxious and very depressed," says Liron.
Diagnosed with conditions including bipolar disorder and ADHD, Reuben attended the private Lincoln Child Center in Oakland, a school for children with special educational needs, for five years.
But his mother says it wasn't until earlier this year that she reallyunderstood what was happening with Reuben.
"I cried, when I read the incident reports," Liron said.
Those incident reports show how center staff at times restrained Reuben on the floor, in one report, holding him down for "ten minutes" after he misbehaved.
And on other occasions, how staff closed him into the "quiet room", where they noted he was "banging" and "ramming his body against the door."
In one report, a therapist wrote that he pleaded with her before being put in the room, "I love you, don't leave me, don't hurt me."
His mom says, "That's the one I cried the most about, because he's so desperate, and he's so scared."
Lincoln Child Center declined an on-camera interview about the case, citing confidentiality. In a statement, it says its ultimate goal is to keep children safe.
And under California law, restraining and even keeping children in those quiet rooms can be legal.
Which is why attorney Maggie Roberts, with Disability Rights California says, "I have great concerns."
Roberts is working on Reuben's case for Disability Rights California (formerly Protection and Advocacy).
According to Roberts, "They are reporting things that show that a child is very traumatized, and yet they continue to do it."
And a CBS5 investigation found similar incidents reported in schools across California and around the nation, in both public and private schools. Children have been locked in closets, or restrained, one even tied down with duct tape.
So last year, Roberts' group tried to change California law to limit those practices, and eliminate seclusion entirely. But Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to sign the bill authored by Senator Sheila Kuehl.
The governor said the bill could stop school employees "from intervening in an emergency and place more students at risk."
But disability rights' Leslie Morrison says:
"By vetoing the bill and allowing these practices to continue we have put teachers and students at great risk."
Morrison says her group is looking into still more cases even now, like that of a 12 year old girl held repeatedly in asmall room with bare walls and no windows in San Diego and an injury sustained by a 9 year old boy on his backside, after being dragged by a classroom aide in a district north of Los Angeles.
http://www.caica.org/RESTRAINT_AND_SECLUSION_CAICA.htm
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
Stop Prison Rape
As you read these two personal accounts below, keep in mind that we can put this terrible and illegal practice to an end. --Lovisa Stannow, Executive Director, Just Detention International
***
by Kimberly Yates:
I spent about 15 years in state and federal prison on drug charges. In 2004, I was at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia where I was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Officer Theodore Woodson.
I was manipulated by this officer, and he forced me to have sex with him on several occasions. What he did to me was inhumane and has stayed with me ever since - rather than let it tear me down, I have taken the opportunity to speak out and educate others about the serious crisis of sexual violence in our nations prisons and jails.
Officer Woodson would take me to the warehouse in the basement of the detention center, and that is where he raped me. After the first time, he told me that if I ever told anybody that he knew where my family lived,where my children lived, threatening to hurt them. I was afraid for myself and my family, so I did not say a word to anybody. He would repeat this threat every time he would attack me.
The final time he raped me, I was badly injured and needed to go to the emergency room. I was bleeding and hemorrhaging - and the medical report identified that I had been raped. When I informed the captain of what happened, fortunately he believed me, and he had Officer Woodson escorted out of the facility.
The captain's response was crucial - if he had refused to believe me, or even blamed me, the situation could have turned out very different. It is really important that any standards you issue include clear measures about officials' responsibility to report incidents of sexual abuse, to take such violence seriously, and the development of clear steps to be taken to initiate an investigation. I believe that these points are well addressed by the standards proposed by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, and I encourage you to draw on their expertise rather than duplicate their efforts.
Eventually, I found out that Officer Woodson had preyed on at least four other women, and that another inmate had reported his conduct more than a year before he raped me. A family on the outside had written to BOP to ask them to investigate this officer. But BOP did nothing - they swept it under the rug.
After my report, BOP finally conducted an investigation. Because I had the courage to tell my story, several other women whom he had sexually assaulted came forward as well. They were too afraid to say anything before then. Three of us were transferred to another facility (FPC Alderson), where we did not get the proper follow-up care that we needed.
The counselor I was assigned was not helpful. I don't think the staff at Alderson took the assault seriously. In fact, some staff made comments to us about what happened with Officer Woodson - they wanted to scare us, intimidate us, make us feel bad for reporting the abuse.
I don't think those officers should have been able to access our files in any way. It is really important that any information related to a sexual assault not become common knowledge. Since they knew about this, many of the staff treated us badly because we had reported on another officer, and that is not right.
The recommendations you are reviewing also address these issues: keeping sexual assault information on a need-to-know basis and giving victims proper follow-up care. This violence is extremely traumatic, and victims need to receive, or at least be offered, counseling to help them heal. Corrections facilities should work with outside rape crisis agencies to make their services available to inmates. And corrections mental health staff need specialized training in providing support to victims of sexual abuse in detention.
I wonder if I had not spoken up, would Officer Woodson still be there? Would he still be abusing women? The BOP was the entity that was supposed to keep me safe. I was supposed to serve time for the crime I committed, not be raped. How many women could the BOP have spared if they had taken notice of what they were told?
Officer Theodore Woodson was eventually charged criminally. He pled guilty to felony counts of engaging in sexual acts with three women inmates and received only a four month jail sentence and three years of probation. At first I felt a lot of anger because of that -- I felt that he got a lesser sentence because we were prisoners and did not have rights. But the truth of it is that he could have gotten life in prison and it would not have taken away from the pain I was left with because of what he did.
What makes my case especially alarming is the fact that the BOP was put on notice about this officer but continued to allow him to work in that position, knowing what he had done and that he could do it to someone else. The standards must address this. Reports that an officer is abusive - even from an outside source like the inmate's family in Woodson's case - must always be taken seriously with a full investigation and real repercussions. If earlier reports of his abuse had been acted on, my rape could have been prevented.
The memory of the assault will ever go away for me, but I have decided how to deal with it. Some of the women involved in my case have a hard time dealing with the trauma - they feel scared and mistrustful, they blame themselves for what happened. We never asked to be raped and I know now that it is not our fault. Even if I was incarcerated, I was still a human being, I still had feelings, I still could get hurt.
I could choose to move on or let it kill me, and I chose to move on. I started my own business when I got home. I have had support from my attorney. My probation officer is one of the fairest, most respectable men, and he has made things easier by being someone that I can call.
The trauma of this experience has caused me serious harm. I developed an eating disorder and other problems. I experienced loss of self-esteem, loss of self-confidence, guilt, and shame. It took something from me that I can never get back. The worst part is it could have been prevented.
***
by Bryson Martel:
While I was in an Arkansas state prison, I was raped by at least 27 different inmates over a nine month period. I don't have to tell you that it was the worst nine months of my life.
In 1991, I was sentenced to six years in prison on a probation violation. I was originally convicted of forging a check to buy crack cocaine. When I went to prison, I was young, skinny, and bisexual. I was scared to death.
As soon as I got there, inmates started acting like they were my fi-iends so they could take advantage of me. They jumped on me and beat me. Within two weeks, I was raped at knifepoint.
Being raped at knifepoint was the worst thing I could ever imagine. The physical pain was devastating. But the emotional pain was even worse.
I reported the rape, and was sent into protective custody. But I wasn't safe there either. They put all kinds of people in protective custody, including sexual predators. I was put in a cell with a rapist who had full-blown AIDS. Within two days, he forced me to give him oral sex and anally raped me. I yelled for the guard, but no one came to help me. I finally had to flood the cell to get a guard to come.
Because I was raped, I got labeled as a "faggot." Everywhere I walked, everyone looked at me like I was a target. It opened the door for a lot of other predators. Even the administrators thought it was okay for a "faggot" to be raped. They said, 'Oh, you must like it.' No one wants to be raped. No one likes being violently attacked.
I documented the abuse, I filed grievances, I followed all of the procedures to report what was happening to me, but no one cared. They just moved me fi-om cell to cell. This went on for nine months. I went through nine months of torture - nine months of hell - that could have been avoided.
In August, I started bleeding really bad from the rectum. I didn't want to go to the infirmary, because I was still so ashamed about what had happened to me, but I had to. They gave me a test, and that's when I got the devastating news. I was HIV-positive. I felt suicidal. I felt like my world had come to an end. I cried and cried. I felt ashamed, embarrassed, degraded, and humiliated. I haven't forgotten those feelings. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about this.
Finally, I was placed in a cell by myself in administrative segregation. The only way I could stay safe was to deliberately disobey the rules so I could get away from my predators.
Eventually, I was interviewed by an investigator from the State Folice, and I made a report of every assault I survived in prison. I had to list all the inmates who sexually assaulted me, and I came up with 27 names. Sometimes just one inmate assaulted me, and sometimes they attacked me in groups. It went on almost every day for the nine months I spent in that facility.
In 2002, I was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. I can't even count how many medications I have to take every day. I can't do a lot of things I used to do. I moved from Arkansas to Michigan to be closer to my family. I wanted to get to know my family before I die.
The amount of trauma and pain I have endured cannot be put in dollars. I'm not able to work. I collect disability. Fighting for my life is my full-time job. They took my life, but they didn't take my ability to live my life.
Everything that happened to me could have been avoided if the prison was accountable for inmates' safety. Standards are needed to protect people like me. Prison officials mix all kinds of inmates together in dormitories and cells. They need to screen inmates so that vulnerable people don't get thrown in with mass murderers. I was a small, non-violent, bisexual, first-time offender. If Classification had done its job, I never would have been placed with violent predators.
I know I had to pay the price for what I did, but I've paid double price. That check I wrote cost me my life. Every day I wake up and I'm just grateful that I'm still here. I've already accepted that I'm going to die, but before I do, I want to see justice in the prison system. The only way to help me now is to put an end to rape in prison.
Learn more about how you can help prevent prison rape at Just Detention International.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/ 147303/the_ brutal_horror_ of_prison_ rape,_as_ told_by_its_ victims
***
by Kimberly Yates:
I spent about 15 years in state and federal prison on drug charges. In 2004, I was at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia where I was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Officer Theodore Woodson.
I was manipulated by this officer, and he forced me to have sex with him on several occasions. What he did to me was inhumane and has stayed with me ever since - rather than let it tear me down, I have taken the opportunity to speak out and educate others about the serious crisis of sexual violence in our nations prisons and jails.
Officer Woodson would take me to the warehouse in the basement of the detention center, and that is where he raped me. After the first time, he told me that if I ever told anybody that he knew where my family lived,where my children lived, threatening to hurt them. I was afraid for myself and my family, so I did not say a word to anybody. He would repeat this threat every time he would attack me.
The final time he raped me, I was badly injured and needed to go to the emergency room. I was bleeding and hemorrhaging - and the medical report identified that I had been raped. When I informed the captain of what happened, fortunately he believed me, and he had Officer Woodson escorted out of the facility.
The captain's response was crucial - if he had refused to believe me, or even blamed me, the situation could have turned out very different. It is really important that any standards you issue include clear measures about officials' responsibility to report incidents of sexual abuse, to take such violence seriously, and the development of clear steps to be taken to initiate an investigation. I believe that these points are well addressed by the standards proposed by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, and I encourage you to draw on their expertise rather than duplicate their efforts.
Eventually, I found out that Officer Woodson had preyed on at least four other women, and that another inmate had reported his conduct more than a year before he raped me. A family on the outside had written to BOP to ask them to investigate this officer. But BOP did nothing - they swept it under the rug.
After my report, BOP finally conducted an investigation. Because I had the courage to tell my story, several other women whom he had sexually assaulted came forward as well. They were too afraid to say anything before then. Three of us were transferred to another facility (FPC Alderson), where we did not get the proper follow-up care that we needed.
The counselor I was assigned was not helpful. I don't think the staff at Alderson took the assault seriously. In fact, some staff made comments to us about what happened with Officer Woodson - they wanted to scare us, intimidate us, make us feel bad for reporting the abuse.
I don't think those officers should have been able to access our files in any way. It is really important that any information related to a sexual assault not become common knowledge. Since they knew about this, many of the staff treated us badly because we had reported on another officer, and that is not right.
The recommendations you are reviewing also address these issues: keeping sexual assault information on a need-to-know basis and giving victims proper follow-up care. This violence is extremely traumatic, and victims need to receive, or at least be offered, counseling to help them heal. Corrections facilities should work with outside rape crisis agencies to make their services available to inmates. And corrections mental health staff need specialized training in providing support to victims of sexual abuse in detention.
I wonder if I had not spoken up, would Officer Woodson still be there? Would he still be abusing women? The BOP was the entity that was supposed to keep me safe. I was supposed to serve time for the crime I committed, not be raped. How many women could the BOP have spared if they had taken notice of what they were told?
Officer Theodore Woodson was eventually charged criminally. He pled guilty to felony counts of engaging in sexual acts with three women inmates and received only a four month jail sentence and three years of probation. At first I felt a lot of anger because of that -- I felt that he got a lesser sentence because we were prisoners and did not have rights. But the truth of it is that he could have gotten life in prison and it would not have taken away from the pain I was left with because of what he did.
What makes my case especially alarming is the fact that the BOP was put on notice about this officer but continued to allow him to work in that position, knowing what he had done and that he could do it to someone else. The standards must address this. Reports that an officer is abusive - even from an outside source like the inmate's family in Woodson's case - must always be taken seriously with a full investigation and real repercussions. If earlier reports of his abuse had been acted on, my rape could have been prevented.
The memory of the assault will ever go away for me, but I have decided how to deal with it. Some of the women involved in my case have a hard time dealing with the trauma - they feel scared and mistrustful, they blame themselves for what happened. We never asked to be raped and I know now that it is not our fault. Even if I was incarcerated, I was still a human being, I still had feelings, I still could get hurt.
I could choose to move on or let it kill me, and I chose to move on. I started my own business when I got home. I have had support from my attorney. My probation officer is one of the fairest, most respectable men, and he has made things easier by being someone that I can call.
The trauma of this experience has caused me serious harm. I developed an eating disorder and other problems. I experienced loss of self-esteem, loss of self-confidence, guilt, and shame. It took something from me that I can never get back. The worst part is it could have been prevented.
***
by Bryson Martel:
While I was in an Arkansas state prison, I was raped by at least 27 different inmates over a nine month period. I don't have to tell you that it was the worst nine months of my life.
In 1991, I was sentenced to six years in prison on a probation violation. I was originally convicted of forging a check to buy crack cocaine. When I went to prison, I was young, skinny, and bisexual. I was scared to death.
As soon as I got there, inmates started acting like they were my fi-iends so they could take advantage of me. They jumped on me and beat me. Within two weeks, I was raped at knifepoint.
Being raped at knifepoint was the worst thing I could ever imagine. The physical pain was devastating. But the emotional pain was even worse.
I reported the rape, and was sent into protective custody. But I wasn't safe there either. They put all kinds of people in protective custody, including sexual predators. I was put in a cell with a rapist who had full-blown AIDS. Within two days, he forced me to give him oral sex and anally raped me. I yelled for the guard, but no one came to help me. I finally had to flood the cell to get a guard to come.
Because I was raped, I got labeled as a "faggot." Everywhere I walked, everyone looked at me like I was a target. It opened the door for a lot of other predators. Even the administrators thought it was okay for a "faggot" to be raped. They said, 'Oh, you must like it.' No one wants to be raped. No one likes being violently attacked.
I documented the abuse, I filed grievances, I followed all of the procedures to report what was happening to me, but no one cared. They just moved me fi-om cell to cell. This went on for nine months. I went through nine months of torture - nine months of hell - that could have been avoided.
In August, I started bleeding really bad from the rectum. I didn't want to go to the infirmary, because I was still so ashamed about what had happened to me, but I had to. They gave me a test, and that's when I got the devastating news. I was HIV-positive. I felt suicidal. I felt like my world had come to an end. I cried and cried. I felt ashamed, embarrassed, degraded, and humiliated. I haven't forgotten those feelings. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about this.
Finally, I was placed in a cell by myself in administrative segregation. The only way I could stay safe was to deliberately disobey the rules so I could get away from my predators.
Eventually, I was interviewed by an investigator from the State Folice, and I made a report of every assault I survived in prison. I had to list all the inmates who sexually assaulted me, and I came up with 27 names. Sometimes just one inmate assaulted me, and sometimes they attacked me in groups. It went on almost every day for the nine months I spent in that facility.
In 2002, I was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. I can't even count how many medications I have to take every day. I can't do a lot of things I used to do. I moved from Arkansas to Michigan to be closer to my family. I wanted to get to know my family before I die.
The amount of trauma and pain I have endured cannot be put in dollars. I'm not able to work. I collect disability. Fighting for my life is my full-time job. They took my life, but they didn't take my ability to live my life.
Everything that happened to me could have been avoided if the prison was accountable for inmates' safety. Standards are needed to protect people like me. Prison officials mix all kinds of inmates together in dormitories and cells. They need to screen inmates so that vulnerable people don't get thrown in with mass murderers. I was a small, non-violent, bisexual, first-time offender. If Classification had done its job, I never would have been placed with violent predators.
I know I had to pay the price for what I did, but I've paid double price. That check I wrote cost me my life. Every day I wake up and I'm just grateful that I'm still here. I've already accepted that I'm going to die, but before I do, I want to see justice in the prison system. The only way to help me now is to put an end to rape in prison.
Learn more about how you can help prevent prison rape at Just Detention International.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/ 147303/the_ brutal_horror_ of_prison_ rape,_as_ told_by_its_ victims
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