Women Decry Deplorable Conditions in State Prison

Women Decry Deplorable Conditions in State Prison Former inmates at the Central California Women's Facility say they were denied health care and diagnosed with diseases they don't have. A recent report backs up their claims. By Andrea Abi-Karam When Theresa Martinez was an inmate at the Central California Women's Facility, prison health officials diagnosed her as having HIV. Martinez said her mental health deteriorated as a result. Prison doctors also put her on a rigorous anti-HIV drug regimen for ten years. Eventually, officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation transferred her to a state prison facility in Southern California. Once there, the facility's health staffers urged Martinez to take another HIV test, even though she had assured them that she was infected with the virus. The results came back negative. They did the test again. It was negative, again. She didn't have HIV. Martinez said she later learned that the Central California Women's Facility, where she and many other East Bay women end up when they're sentenced to prison, had a contract with a pharmaceutical company that sells HIV medication. Martinez, who now works for the Oakland-based prisoners' rights group Justice Now, shared the story of what happened to her at a recent public event. She contends that corporate-driven interests affect the physical and mental health of prisoners throughout the California prison system. There's also compelling evidence that the health facility within the Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla has a history of badly mistreating female prisoners. Late last year, a three-person panel of court-appointed medical experts released a scathing report on the deplorable conditions inside the prison. Overall, the panel found that CCWF "is not providing adequate medical care, and that there are systemic issues resulting in preventable morbidity and mortality disease and death] that present an ongoing serious risk of harm to patients." The 57-page report, which didn't receive much press coverage, also stated that CCWF's health facility is disorganized and overcrowded. "We believe that the majority of problems are attributable to overcrowding, insufficient health care staffing and inadequate medical bed space," the report stated. The court-ordered health care evaluation came in response to a January 2013 report conducted by Governor Jerry Brown's office that declared the health care conditions at CCWF improved. The dismal quality of health care inside California's prisons was the driving force behind orders issued by federal judges to the state to dramatically reduce its inmate population. "Overcrowding and health care conditions cited by this Court to support its population reduction order are now a distant memory," Brown's office stated. Despite the scathing report on CCWF by court-appointed medical experts, federal judges agreed last month to give Brown and state corrections officials more time to relieve overcrowding in California's prisons.The overcrowded conditions at CCWF worsened in 2012 when the state converted Valley State Prison for Women (which is located near CCWF) into a men's facility and then funneled that facility's female prisoners into CCWF and the California Institution for Women near Chino. CCWF's inmate population quickly grew to 184 percent of capacity. According to the court-appointed medical experts, the packed conditions at CCWF resulted in health care staff being slow to respond to inmates' medical needs. "I would assume that during an emergency you would run toward the emergency, but no, 95 percent of the time they walk — stroll," said Mianta McKnight, a former Brisbane resident who was released from CCWF three months ago and currently resides at a prisoner re-entry facility on Treasure Island. McKnight told me that when nurses at CCWF respond to an emergency, they'll only provide care if the patient is incoherent and can't stand up. She described an instance in which her roommate was waiting to get treatment for an earache. The pain became so intense, she passed out and hit her head on her bunk. "She was trying to be seen and was ignored," McKnight said. And even if a prisoner does get seen by health care staffers at CCWF, there's a good chance she won't get appropriate care. According to the court-ordered report, as well as first-hand accounts, CCWF medical staffers routinely prescribe expired, incorrect, or insufficient medication. Inmates also "were given the wrong medications at times — kind of like test this and see if it works and if it doesn't work we'll try something else," she continued. She said she once helped take care of a fellow inmate who became paralyzed down the left side of her body because she received the wrong drugs. McKnight also said that it was not uncommon for prisoners to wait in the pharmacy line for long periods and then watch staffers withhold their prescribed medications. They'd get to the front of the line, and then watch staffers pull up their mugshots and arrest histories on Google, and send the prisoners to the back of the line if the staffers disliked what they saw, she said. At CCWF, prisoners with chronic illnesses and disabilities are consigned to the skilled nursing facility, which further isolates them within the prison system, and further alienates them from their families. "They are sometimes thrown back there and don't know why they're back there," said McKnight of inmates being put in skilled nursing. "They have little or no communication with their families." Prison officials also regularly lock down the skilled nursing facility without explanation, she said. http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/women-decry-deplorable-conditions-in-state-prison/Content?oid=3868191

Women In CCWF Abused

For Immediate Release Imprisoned People Facing Medical Neglect and Violence, Family Members and Organizers Speak Out. > Press Contact: Dolores Canales, Family Unity Network, (714)290-9077 dol1canales@gmail.com or Hannah McFaull, Justice Now, (415) 813.7715 hannah@justicenow.org > Sacramento – On November 11th, an imprisoned person at Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF), faced extreme violence at the hands of prison guards. Stacy Rojas and three others were detained, physically abused, sexually harassed, strip searched in the presence of male guards, and were kept without water, food or restrooms for eleven hours. The group was illegally kept in administrative segregation without a lock up order and have been denied health care support for the injuries caused by these officers. Requests to speak with members of the prison’s Investigative Services Unit have so far been ignored. I just want to let them know that we have been physically abused, sexually harassed,” said Stacy Rojas, “and that this was just wrong. They used excessive force, totally used excessive force against us and we need help. The public acknowledgment of excessive use of force and deadly use of force by police has increased throughout the nation. Video recordings of interactions between the police and the public have increased significantly in recent years as technology has improved and the number of distribution channels has expanded. This is not an option open to people experiencing violence from guards behind prison walls and any attempt to speak out is often met with retaliation and increased force. > Our communities in and out of lock up have lived experiences with biased policing -- ranging from racial profiling, to excessive, and sometimes lethal, use of force”, stated Patrisse Cullors co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter. “We hear about it more and more in the communities we live in, but rarely hear about the traumatic ways that it manifests in the California prison system. Stories like Stacy’s are happening everyday inside of California prisons and jails with little to no measures taken by authorities to keep people safe and hold law enforcement, such as prison guards accountable. Advocacy organizations working with people in women’s prisons are familiar with reports of abuse and violence, like that experienced at CCWF last week. The California Coalition for Women Prisoners, Justice Now, the Family Unity Network, the TGI Justice Project and others regularly provide legal and medical advocacy support following incidents of violence perpetrated by correctional officers at women’s prisons. > This group of organizations and Stacy’s family members are requesting an independent investigation of the violence and excessive use of force used. They are requesting medical care and safe housing for Stacy and all those involved. The group also demands an end to the violence imposed on women, transgender people, gender nonconforming people, and communities of color within the California prison system. > " My sister is at the end of a fourteen year sentence and it seems as though some would wish to take that away. This has never happened to Stacy before. We have never had fear for my sister's life”, said Adriana Rojas. “My sister Stacy Rojas' constitutional rights have been violated by being stripped searched by male guards, assaulted by means of kicking and stomping, taken outdoors in near 40 degree weather, threatened with rape, humiliated, placed in holding cages for nearly 12 hours, and deprived of food and water. Albert Jacob Rojas added, “They were denied medical attention and denied the right to speak to internal affairs. We ask that anybody who cares about human rights and women's rights please join us in demanding justice for all. Family members and advocates are calling for: An immediate independent investigation into the violence and excessive force used by guards in this incident. Suspension of guards involved pending investigation. Comprehensive medical treatment for injuries sustained during the incident. No retaliation for speaking out against this abuse.

Inmates Forced To Have Sex At Florida's Prison For Women

Horrific Report: At Largest US Women’s Prison, Inmates Forced To Have Sex For Basic Necessities .This is a major problem in most of America’s prisons! it is one of the most widespread forms of prison abuse. The abusers must be prosecuted! At the foundation of our civil liberties lies the principle that denies to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. – Justice Louis D. Brandeis Florida is one of the largest women’s corrections facilities in the United States, and it is also notorious for being one of the most corrupt and brutal. Recently, numerous inmates have come forward with allegations that they were routinely sexually abused and assaulted by both male and female guards. According to various complaints filed between 2011 and 2015, female inmates would be forced to “barter” sexual acts with guards in exchange for basic necessities like soap and food. According to the complaints, women at Lowell who submitted to the sexual demands of the guards were rewarded with the best food and living supplies available. Meanwhile, women who refused were harassed, neglected, denied basic necessities, and sometimes put in solitary confinement. In many cases, women were put through psychological evaluations and labeled as mentally ill as a result of refusing the guard’s sexual advances.and labeled as mentally ill as a result of refusing the guard’s sexual advances. As we reported last year, in one case, a woman named Latandra Ellington attempted to file a complaint against the guards at Lowell, saying that she was being sexually assaulted, and she was murdered just days later. According to family members, Latandra may have been planning to speak out about the rampant sexual abuse that the correctional officers at the prison have been inflicting on the inmates. Marion County Chief Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgway told the Miami Herald that the sex taking place in these situations was “consensual,” however it is obvious that women in prison are dependent upon the mercy of these guards for their survival, and that the sexual acts in these situations were coerced. sexual activity was absolutely coerced. “What I saw was that some of the girls were truly victims of rape and sexual assault and battery. I believed them when they told me it was unsolicited, uninvited and a nightmare,” Johnson argued. The allegations sparked an investigation by the Miami Herald, which revealed that complaints of rape were frequently silenced by the staff at the prison In the past decade, only two officers were arrested for sexual misconduct at the prison, but both of them pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and only spent a few months in jail. “The so-called punishment for an officer who rapes an inmate is to get transferred to another facility. Florida’s prisons allow officers to rape women in prison because the inmates aren’t considered to have any rights,” Nancy G. Abudu, legal director for the ACLU of Florida pointed out. http://thefreethoughtproject.com/largest-womens-prison-inmates-forced-sex-guards-exchange-basic-necessities-large/

Reports Of Chronic Abuse And Neglect

Residential Schools Goes Too Far Certain programs around the country for kids with emotional and behavioral disorders have a history of physical mistreatment. At least 145 children have died from avoidable causes at residential facilities over the past 35 years. At programs across the country, at least 145 children have died from avoidable causes at residential facilities over the past 35 years, a ProPublica analysis of news reports found. At least 62 children died after being restrained, most often because of asphyxiation. The job of monitoring the well-being of children at the programs is spread across so many state and local agencies that kids can fall through the cracks. State education agencies, for instance, rarely take strong action. A ProPublica survey found that about half of the education departments didn’t have the power to sanction such schools even if they discovered public-school students were being mistreated. School officials in just seven of the 44 states that responded to the survey said they had levied penalties on or closed such a program in the last decade. “State agencies can certainly step up measures to hold all residential treatment programs accountable to high health and safety standards, but the reality is that most have not despite a rash of abuse allegations occurring in programs on their turf,” the California representative Adam Schiff told ProPublica in an email. Schiff reintroduced a bill earlier this year that would require the tracking of abuse allegations lodged against such programs. Despite the public funding, there is little data on residential schools. One federal database collects state data on abuse incidents, but submission is voluntary. There is no required federal tracking of abuse allegations–and there is not even a nationwide list of all residential programs. One often-cited government survey, which is more than a decade old, estimates that there are at least 3,600 facilities across the country, housing more than 50,000 children annually. Ira Burnim, the legal director for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health, believes that the current data gives an incomplete picture. “Our lack of information and data is very troubling,” said Burnim. “To a certain extent, the residential treatment centers are out of sight, out of mind.” Lawmakers have repeatedly called for changes amid reports of chronic abuse and neglect. A government report in 2008 found gaps in state regulation increased the risk of abuse and neglect at some youth residential programs. Some state agencies didn’t visit programs often enough to make sure kids were safe and well-cared for, the report found. In other states, some programs, such as private boarding schools and religious treatment centers, are exempt from licensing and do not have direct regulation. There were residential facilities that had built fortresses around themselves,” Blau said. “They kept kids in and kept families out.” There is great value to having local oversight, but it’s important for there to be federal standards that drive service advancement,” she told ProPublica. Industry groups and providers have at times aggressively sought to fend off federal regulation of their programs and worked to undermine stricter rules. http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/12/kids-get-hurt-at-residential-schools/420846/?utm_source=SFTwitter

Santa Clara ~!uards Beat Another Inmate To Death

Posted: Tuesday, September 29, 2015 6:47 am | Updated: 9:00 am, Tue Sep 29, 2015. Inmate in Northern California jail found dead in cellAssociated Press | SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Authorities are investigating the death of an inmate in the same Northern California jail where a man was beaten to death last month. KNTV reports (http://bit.ly/1LMjZLN ) Tuesday that an inmate at the Santa Clara County Main Jail died in custody Monday morning. Sgt. James Jensen with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office says corrections staff administered CPR while fire crews were en route.The inmate could not be resuscitated and was pronounced dead at 11:04 a.m.Monday's death remains under investigation, and Jensen says the sheriff's office isn't releasing additional details until the man's family is notified. The incident comes a month after inmate Michael Tyree was allegedly beaten to death by three deputies in the same jail on Aug. 27. The three correctional officers have been charged with murder. Two were released on $1.5 million bail each on Monday. http://www.recorderonline.com/news/state_news/inmate-in-northern-california-jail-found-dead-in-cell/article_58641d02-02b4-5b1d-9521-c171fffb66dd.html

Twenty Prisoners Sign Affidavits Saying They Witnessed Guards Beat Inmate To Death

You are here: Home » Cover-Up Nearly Twenty Prisoners Sign Affidavits Saying They Witnessed Guards Beat Inmate To Death August 18, 2015 5:36 pm· A full 19 different inmates locked up in New York’s Fishkill Correctional Facility have signed sworn affidavits that say they witnessed guards brutally beating Samuel Harrell to death. Michael Winerip and Micahel Schwirts of the New York Times write that the inmates described nothing short than what Shaun King of the Daily Kos says was “a living hell on earth not just for Samuel, but for so many of their peers who are locked far away in poorly managed prison.” Last April 21st, 30 year old Samuel “J-Rock” Harrell was killed – beaten to death by prison guards. King days that Harrell was “often out of touch with reality, and five years away from his sentence ending.” He didn’t understand the situation he was facing, day-to-day, behind bars. “Samuel packed a bag and told the guards his beloved sister was there to pick him up,” King explains. “Of course she wasn’t, but sincerely didn’t seem to know that.” Not long after, he got into a confrontation with corrections officers, was thrown to the floor and was handcuffed. As many as 20 officers — including members of a group known around the prison as the Beat Up Squad — repeatedly kicked and punched Mr. Harrell, who is black, with some of them shouting racial slurs, according to more than a dozen inmate witnesses. “Like he was a trampoline, they were jumping on him,” said Edwin Pearson, an inmate who watched from a nearby bathroom.Mr. Harrell was then thrown or dragged down a staircase, according to the inmates’ accounts. One inmate reported seeing him lying on the landing, “bent in an impossible position.” The inmates say the guards were immediately trying to cover their tracks and construct and agreed upon alibi. http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/08/nearly-twenty-prisoners-sign-affidavits-saying-they-witnessed-guards/

Cruel & All Too Usual A Terrifying Glimce Into The Life In Prison As A Kid

http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/cruel-and-all-too-usual/ - WARNING: The Following Video, Obtained By The Huffington Post, Show The Rough Treatment Of A Minor By Correctional Officers & May bE Disturbing To Some Viewers. If You are In A public Place Headphones Are Advisable: - http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/cruel-and-all-too-usual/ - >Cruel & All Too Usual A Terrifying Glimce Into The Life In Prison As A Kid By Dana Liebelson. When the video above was filmed, the girl on the bed was 17 years old. For the purposes of this story, I’ll call her Jamie. There was a time when she liked acting in goofy comedy skits at her Detroit church or crawling into bed with her grandmother to watch TV. She loved to sing—her favorite artist was Chris Brown—but she was too shy to perform in front of other people. Jamie, whose mother was addicted to crack cocaine, was adopted when she was 3. At high school, she fell in with a wayward crowd and started drinking and smoking weed. Since she didn't always get along with her adoptive mom, she lived with a close family friend from her church whom she referred to as her sister. One fall day in 2011, they got into a bad fight over their living arrangements. The friend told police that Jamie threw a brick at her, hitting her in the chest, and then banged the brick so hard on the front door that she broke the glass mail chute. Jamie denies the assault—and the police report notes that the brick may not have hit her friend—but she admitted to officers that she was “mad” and “trying to get back in the house.” The Wayne County court gave her two concurrent six-month sentences, for assault and destruction of a building. In a wealthier Michigan county, kids convicted of minor offenses are almost always sentenced to community service, like helping out at the local science center. Doug Mullkoff, a criminal defense attorney in Ann Arbor, told me that prison in such circumstances is "virtually unheard of." But Jamie is from Detroit, and in January 2012, she was sent to the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, a prison that holds inmates convicted of crimes like first-degree homicide. From this point onward, her world was largely governed by codes and practices and assumptions designed for adult criminals. Jamie is 20 now, but her soft brown eyes make her seem younger. When she first came to prison, women old enough to be her mother told her she was cute and promised to take care of her. “They rub on you and stuff, I can’t stand it,” she said. In the seven months before her 18th birthday, prison records show that Jamie was housed with at least three adult cellmates, including one in her 50s who had a history of cocaine possession. Jamie said she was also around adults in the showers and the yard. She had a bunkmate who did drugs she had never been around before, “something you snort.” In this environment, Jamie found it hard to stay out of trouble. And when trouble came, she didn’t know how to explain herself to the guards. According to Chris Gautz, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC), Jamie “failed in every instance” to meet good-behavior standards that under Michigan law allow certain inmates to have their records scrubbed clean after they serve their sentences. In June 2012, Jamie’s special status was revoked and she was resentenced to up to five years in prison for her original crime. In May, Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder signed a law that limits the circumstances under which kids with Jamie’s status can be sent to prison. However, he stressed that youth can still be placed in prison to “protect public safety.” When this news sank in, Jamie snapped. On June 15, 2012, she started yelling so loud and for so long that a correctional officer complained in the logbook that the noise was giving her a headache. Then she climbed on her sink and threatened to kill herself. A group of officers in gas masks hauled her out of her cell as she begged them to put her down. Chemical gas that had been used to subdue another inmate lingered in the hallway, Jamie later recalled, and she started to cough. The officers pressed a spit guard on her face and fastened straps on her arms and legs and chest, a practice known as five-point restraint. Jamie became more and more distressed, but at no point did the officers attempt to calm her or even explain what they were doing. “[There was] snot coming out of my nose. I’m trying to sit up,” she said. “I’m coughing and crying at the same time, and basically the officer said I spit on her and they still tied me down.” She recalled pleading with the guards, “I’m like only 17, you can’t do this to me.” A page from a guard’s observation log on June 15, obtained through a FOIA request. After Jamie had been restrained, the logbook shows that she was left tied to a bed for nearly 24 hours. No therapist appears to have visited her during this time. Jamie said that on another occasion, she was restrained for days and urinated on herself. “I’ve had dreams about being held down; nobody can hear me or nothing. It’s terrifying,” she said. The MDOC declined to comment on detailed questions related to her treatment because they concerned “pending litigation” and “personal medical information.” Jamie had never attempted suicide until she went to prison and her fellow inmates taught her how to cut herself. Over the course of several weeks in June, according to the prison log, she tried to hang herself with socks tied around her neck, to cut herself with wall scrapings and rocks and a comb, to eat paint chips off her door, and to scratch a wound on her arm with empty mayonnaise packets. She told a staff member she wanted her arm to get infected, amputated, and sent to her parents. A checklist from the June 15, 2012 incident report when Jamie was placed in restraints.The cause of the incident is marked as "none apparent." The treatment of kids in adult lockups recently received a rare burst of attention with the suicide of Kalief Browder on June 8 of this year. Browder was sent to the jail on Rikers Island at the age of 16 after being accused of stealing a backpack. During the three years he spent there before the charges were thrown out, he was brutally assaulted by both inmates and guards and spent about two years in solitary confinement. His case has drawn attention to what the Justice Department called a “dangerous place for adolescents” with a “pervasive climate of fear.” But the problem runs far deeper than one jail gone rogue. In the course of reporting on a lawsuit against the Michigan prison system, I obtained a series of videos depicting the treatment of underage inmates in adult facilities, as well as hundreds of prison documents through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and other sources. (Jamie is a plaintiff in the lawsuit.) These materials show under-18-year-olds being restrained, held in solitary confinement, forcibly extracted from their cells, tasered, and allegedly sexually assaulted. Some of these incidents would not violate any official rulebook, but are simply accepted practices inside adult correctional institutions. In 1822, when prison reformers in New York proposed the nation’s first juvenile institution, they saw the need to keep children separate from adults as “too obvious to require any argument.” The juvenile justice system was founded on the idea that young people are capable of change, and so society has a responsibility to help them overcome early mistakes in life. More recent science has only confirmed this principle. Because adolescents’ brains are still developing, their patterns of behavior not yet fixed, they have a far better chance of being rehabilitated than adults. And yet this potential is lost in prisons and jails, which barely recognize any distinction between adults and minors. http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/cruel-and-all-too-usual/ In the 1980s and ‘90s, the United States was gripped by panic over the specter of the teenage “super-predator,” and the controversial Princeton professor John DiIulio warned darkly of “the youngest, biggest and baddest generation any society has ever known.” These claims would turn out to be wildly overblown, but during this period many states introduced laws making it easier for children to be prosecuted as adults. Between 1985 and 1995, the number of youth incarcerated in prisons and jails roughly doubled. As of 2013, almost 6,000 kids were held in adult facilities across the country. Compared to kids who do their time in juvenile detention, those in the adult system attempt suicide more often. One study, reviewed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tracked what happened to minors in custody for similar crimes. After they were released, those who had served in the adult system were 77 percent more likely to be arrested for a violent felony than those who were sent to juvenile institutions. There is an increasing body of scientific research showing that when adolescents suffer from extreme stress and trauma, it can inflict permanent damage on their bodies and brains. A study led by the CDC found that children who experienced multiple forms of trauma, such as physical and sexual abuse, had a life expectancy 20 years shorter than their counterparts.