Young People In Rikers

By Ashley Southall and Jan Ransom, New York Times NATIONAL NEWS New York City’s Young Inmates Are Held in Isolation Upstate Despite Ban Posted 11:49 p.m. yesterday NEW YORK — Three years ago, when New York City banned solitary confinement for inmates younger than 22 and curtailed it for others, Mayor Bill de Blasio held up the policy as a model for reform. But since the rules were approved, the city has stepped up a long-standing practice of transferring some inmates to correctional facilities elsewhere in the state where no such restrictions exist. Dozens of New York City inmates, including several teenagers, have ended up in solitary confinement Transfers of inmates 21 and younger increased sharply starting in 2015, the year the city adopted the solitary ban, and except for a drop in 2017, the number of such transfers has remained well above the levels seen before the ban, according to Correction Department data. At least 10 young inmates have been transferred from New York City this year, including eight who are in solitary at one upstate jail, the Albany County Correctional Facility, according to their lawyers. Defense lawyers say transferring inmates allows city officials to avoid responsibility for harsher conditions of confinement. A few of the lawyers are challenging the transfers in court on the grounds that they violate inmates’ due process rights, as well as state law and city rules. Isolation of inmates has been shown to heighten the risks of suicide and depression, especially among young people, and the city has not only limited the use of solitary confinement but has begun moving 16- and 17-year-olds off Rikers Island to comply with a new state law that raised the age at which a person could be charged as an adult to 18. But some of the reform efforts have faced resistance, most notably from the union representing guards, which has said serious sanctions like solitary must be preserved for violent inmates. All the inmates sent to Albany said through their attorneys or in interviews that they have been beaten by guards and put into solitary confinement for months. Steven Espinal, 19, said guards stomped and kicked him so badly when he arrived that he lost hearing in his left ear and passed blood in his urine. He was hospitalized, then sentenced to 600 days in solitary confinement for violating jail rules, his lawyer said. Currently, 10 young New York City inmates are being held in outside jails, according to the Correction Department. There are 811 inmates younger than 21 in the city’s jails. Detailed information about how transfers have been used under de Blasio was not available because orders granted for safety reasons were destroyed three years after they expired. That practice ended in April, when the state Commission of Correction, which approves transfers Since city jails implemented alternatives to solitary confinement for inmates 21 and younger, officers have complained they lost an effective tool for controlling young inmates. Inmates sent to the Albany jail described a pattern of abuse that begins with making up misconduct and weapons violations. In written complaints and in interviews with The New York Times and their lawyers, they said the charges serve as a pretext for beating and isolating them. https://www.wral.com/new-york-city-s-young-inmates-are-held-in-isolation-upstate-despite-ban/17714114/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CIW'S Suicide Spike

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/10/suicide-california-womens-prison-mental-health 'The system failed her': behind a Suicide Spike at a California women's prisom By Jessica Pishko Advocates for female prisoners say that poor mental health care is causing preventable deaths at the California Institution for Women During an 18-month period from 2014 to 2015, there were 4four suicides and at least 20 suicide attempts the institution. At 14, Erika Rocha pleaded guilty to attempted murder in a shooting. Tried as an adult, she was sentenced to 19 years-to-life. At 16, Rocha was incarcerated in solitary confinement in an adult prison until she turned 18, allegedly for her own protection from other inmates. At 35, the day before her first parole hearing and just after being released from yet another stay in suicide watch – solitary confinement in a suicide-resistant room – she hanged herself in her cell at the California Institution for Women (CIW). “She needed help,” Rocha’s sister Geraldine said. “She needed somebody there for her, not to say: ‘Here, go sit in a room by yourself and maybe it will go away.’” Rocha’s suicide is just the latest in a spike at CIW, in San Bernardino County. During an 18-month period from 2014 to 2015, there were four suicides and at least 20 suicide attempts at CIW – eight times the national rate for female inmates and more than five times the rate for all California’s prisons. In comparison, there had been just three suicides at CIW in the previous 14 years. According to advocates at the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP), 22 women have been added to suicide watch since Rocha’s death, so many that they are being housed in security housing units – solitary confinement cells intended for punishment, not mental health care. Michael Bien, a lead attorney in Coleman v Brown, an ongoing lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), said: “Once you start using segregation for suicide watch, you’ve lost.” Colby Lenz, an advocate with CCWP, said: “The prison system failed Erika and her loved ones. After years of failed suicide prevention audits and CDCR negligence in remedying court-ordered violations, the blatant inaction of CDCR and CIW led to Erika’s tragic and preventable death.” In 1995, a judge in the Coleman suit found that the standard of mental health care in California’s overcrowded prisons was so low as to be unconstitutional and ordered that mental health care for all of California’s prisons be placed under independent control. But advocates and a recent independent report warn that despite the decades-old judicial order to improve mental health care for inmates, there have not been enough changes by the CDCR to stem what were preventable deaths. Neither the CDCR nor the healthcare receiver’s office responded to a request for comment. The state’s office of the inspector general said this month that it was taking steps to address the recent surge: “We have increased our usual monitoring practice with regard to attempted suicides by female inmates. We are currently conducting a case review as described above for every attempted suicide and are responding on-scene to all attempts that result in serious injury. We are also collaborating with CDCR regarding steps being taken to improve suicide prevention efforts at CIW.” The inspector general’s office said that they were monitoring Rocha’s case and others. In January, Lindsay M Hayes, a prison and jail suicide expert who advises facilities across the country, filed a nearly 150-page report on CDCR facilities as part of the 1995 judicial order that requires periodic reporting. According to Hayes’ report, the CDCR had done little to improve identification of women who needed treatment. CIW logs that Hayes reviewed showed that, from October 2014 through March 2015, only nine women were sent for emergency care due to suicide risk. Yet he found over 400 referrals for suicidal behavior over the same period, a “staggering disparity”. One of the more troubling suicides in the report occurred in March 2015, when a woman in her 30s, nearing the end of an eight-year sentence, hanged herself in her cell. Despite a long history of abuse, psychiatric illnesses dating back to her first hospitalization when she was 13, self-mutilation and multiple suicide attempts, including one less than a year before her death – she was listed as “low risk” for suicide. The report also said that CIW had not ensured safe housing for all suicidal inmates – meaning there is nothing they can harm themselves with. The prison was also denying women in mental heath treatment access to yard time; only two of the women had been outside in the last month. Bien, who has been working to improve mental health care conditions in CDCR facilities for over a decade, points to a host of reasons for the spike in suicides: “Overcrowding, understaffing and ineffective management and supervision all contribute.” He adds that CDCR has had appropriate procedures for mental health care and suicide prevention for some time, but “it has not been able to successfully train and implement the policies in a consistent way”. Female inmates are a uniquely vulnerable group as compared to men; 85-90% of women sentenced to life have been physically and sexually abused, and, according to a 2005 Bureau of Justice Statistics report, 73% of incarcerated women have a diagnosed mental health problem. (The average across all California prisons is just under 50%, according to a study out of Stanford Law School.) And while the men’s prisons have steadily decreased their numbers, the women’s still suffer from severe overcrowding. According to the CDCR’s reports, CIW is currently at 132% capacity, which is below the court-ordered population cap of 137.5%) and Chowchilla prison is at 145%. Both facilities are under-resourced, say advocates who have called for improved monitoring and resources. While the CDCR has made steps to reduce prison populations and improve the identification of women in need of treatment, there is still the simple math problem of too many people and too few resources. ------------------------------------- http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/10/suicide-california-womens-prison-mental-health Rocha’s suicide is just the latest in a spike at CIW, in San Bernardino County. During an 18-month period from 2014 to 2015, there were four suicides and at least 20 suicide attempts at CIW – eight times the national rate for female inmates and more than five times the rate for all California’s prisons. In comparison, there had been just three suicides at CIW in the previous 14 years. According to advocates at the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP), 22 women have been added to suicide watch since Rocha’s death, so many that they are being housed in security housing units – solitary confinement cells intended for punishment, not mental health care. Michael Bien, a lead attorney in Coleman v Brown, an ongoing lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), said: “Once you start using segregation for suicide watch, you’ve lost.”Colby Lenz, an advocate with CCWP, said: “The prison system failed Erika and her loved ones. After years of failed suicide prevention audits and CDCR negligence in remedying court-ordered violations, the blatant inaction of CDCR and CIW led to Erika’s tragic and preventable death.” In 1995, a judge in the Coleman suit found that the standard of mental health care in California’s overcrowded prisons was so low as to be unconstitutional and ordered th t mental health care for all of California’s prisons be placed under independent control. But advocates and a recent independent report warn that despite the decades-old judicial order to improve mental health care for inmates, there have not been enough changes by the CDCR to stem what were preventable deaths. Neither the CDCR nor the healthcare receiver’s office responded to a request for comment. The state’s office of the inspector general said this month that it was taking steps to address the recent surge: “We have increased our usual monitoring practice with regard to attempted suicides by female inmates. We are currently conducting a case review as described above for every attempted suicide and are responding on-scene to all attempts that result in serious injury. We are also collaborating with CDCR regarding steps being taken to improve suicide prevention efforts at CIW.” The inspector general’s office said that they were monitoring Rocha’s case and others. In January, Lindsay M Hayes, a prison and jail suicide expert who advises facilities across the country, filed a nearly 150-page report on CDCR facilities as part of the 1995 judicial order that requires periodic reporting. According to Hayes’ report, the CDCR had done little to improve identification of women who needed treatment. CIW logs that Hayes reviewed showed that, from October 2014 through March 2015, only nine women were sent for emergency care due to suicide risk. Yet he found over 400 referrals for suicidal behavior over the same period, a “staggering disparity”. One of the more troubling suicides in the report occurred in March 2015, when a woman in her 30s, nearing the end of an eight-year sentence, hanged herself in her cell. Despite a long history of abuse, psychiatric illnesses dating back to her first hospitalization when she was 13, self-mutilation and multiple suicide attempts, including one less than a year before her death – she was listed as “low risk” for suicide. The report also said that CIW had not ensured safe housing for all suicidal inmates – meaning there is nothing they can harm themselves with. The prison was also denying women in mental heath treatment access to yard time; only two of the women had been outside in the last month. Bien, who has been working to improve mental health care conditions in CDCR facilities for over a decade, points to a host of reasons for the spike in suicides: “Overcrowding, understaffing and ineffective management and supervision all contribute.” He adds that CDCR has had appropriate procedures for mental health care and suicide prevention for some time, but “it has not been able to successfully train and implement the policies in a consistent way”. Female inmates are a uniquely vulnerable group as compared to men; 85-90% of women sentenced to life have been physically and sexually abused, and, according to a 2005 Bureau of Justice Statistics report, 73% of incarcerated women have a diagnosed mental health problem. (The average across all California prisons is just under 50%, according to a study out of Stanford Law School.) And while the men’s prisons have steadily decreased their numbers, the women’s still suffer from severe overcrowding. According to the CDCR’s reports, CIW is currently at 132% capacity, which is below the court-ordered population cap of 137.5%) and Chowchilla prison is at 145%. Both facilities are under-resourced, say advocates who have called for improved monitoring and resources. While the CDCR has made steps to reduce prison populations and improve the identification of women in need of treatment, there is still the simple math problem of too many people and too few resources. ----------------------------------------------------------- http://www.theguardian.com/world/series/6x9--a-virtual-experience-of-solitary-confinement (The Different Viseos & Pod Casts: " Solitary Confinement is inhumane, I should know, I spent 30 days there." Chandra Bozelko ------------------- " You start seeing figures in the paint chips" ---------------------- 6x9 Virtual Reality This is isolation" Welcome to your virtual cell: could you survive solitary confinement? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/27/6x9-could-you-survive-solitary-confinement-vr ------------------------ " It is time to end Solitary Confinememt for Juveniles" Once & For All" Cory Booker -------------------- " After audiences see our plat, Mariposa & the saint. They no longer wonder what she did to deserve solitary confinement-they know that no body does." Julia Steele Allen. ----------------------------- http://www.theguardian.com/world/series/6x9--a-virtual-experience-of-solitary-confinement ---------------------------------------

Records Show Excessive Use of Force at Colorado Supermax

Records Show Excessive Use of Force at Colorado Supermax by Lisa Dawson Records kept by the Colorado Department of Corrections show 61 instances from March 1, 2012 to March 1 of this year of corrections officers using force on men held at the Colorado State Penitentiary (CSP), where prisoners are held in administrative segregation on lockdown for 23 hours a day. The "use of force" log, obtained by Denver's Westword, documents varying levels of physical contact used in each incident, some of which required mild force, and others which prison officials deemed it necessary to use brutal control tactics, including restraint chairs and pepper spray. This story comes from Alan Prendergast, who writes for Westword and has reported on Colorado prisons for years: At Colorado's state supermax prison, inmates get into confrontations with guards over food, hygiene, privileges, a refusal to "cuff up" or whatever out of boredom, mental illness or plain orneriness. Some claim to be provoked by staff. Whatever the reason, it's a contest the prisoner is going to lose every time. Like many prisons throughout Colorado and across the nation, people with mental illness compose a large part of the population at CSP. Prendergast writes on the potential impact of solitary confinement on people with mental illness: Although proponents of supermax prisons claim that they act as a deterrent to violence elsewhere in the corrections systems, the facilities also become repositories of "problem" inmates, whose failure to follow the rules tends to prolong their stay in solitary confinement and possibly exacerbate any preexisting mental problems. (As we've previously reported, roughly a third of CSP inmates have been diagnosed with some form of mental illness.) http://solitarywatch.com/2013/06/15/records-show-excessive-use-of-force-at-colorado-supermax/