Powell, 48, died last year after being exposed to the sun for nearly four hours at Arizona State Prison Complex-Perryville in Goodyear. On May 19, the day she died, temperatures reached 107.5 degrees.
*Corrections Director Charles Ryan has called Powell's death "unconscionable" and "an absolute failure.
The department disciplined 16 people in connection with the incident, with five employees fired or forced to resign.
But a four-month investigation of the incident by the department last year failed to answer several key questions, including how much water Powell received while in the enclosure, and when and how she succumbed to the heat.
Moreover, investigators could not determine how the actions or inactions of the corrections staff contributed to the delay of discovering that Powell was in distress and on the verge of death.
"We really did spend a lot of time and man-hours looking at this in an effort to see if we could patch together a case that we could prove," Ahler said. "We just felt at the end of the day, we didn't have enough to do that."
Ahler was chairman for the committee that reviewed the investigation. Incident-review teams met five times over the past year in an effort to build a case.
Donna Hamm, executive director of Middle Ground, a prison-reform group, said statements from officers who walked by Powell and ignored her cries could have been enough to charge someone with negligent homicide.
Hamm said she was more troubled about the message corrections officers could take from the county attorney's decision, despite new policies being put in place to limit the amount of time inmates are detained in outdoor cages.
"All of these things that they're doing don't matter a whit unless the staff follows the policy," Hamm said. "Clearly prosecuting someone would send a very strong message, that the policy means something even if they didn't get a conviction. I think exactly the opposite message is communicated: that the staff can act with impunity against the inmates, and there is no recourse."
Hamm said she planned to contact the U.S. Department of Justice to see if it is willing to review the case.
The investigation into Powell's death showed that lengthy confinements in outdoor cages had become a common practice as officers tried to "wait out" prisoners who were agitated or refusing to return to their cells.
Inmate Vanessa Griego, 24, was confined to a similar cage at Perryville for 20 hours last year after refusing to return to her cell. She did not require medical attention, although the incident alarmed staff members and fellow inmates.
"Waiting out" prisoners meant corrections officers did not have to use force to return inmates to their cells. But it also meant inmates were regularly left outdoors for longer than the two-hour maximum dictated by prison policy.
The practice was discontinued as part of a series of reforms initiated in the wake of Powell's death.
Powell, who was serving a sentence for prostitution, said she felt suicidal at 11 a.m. on May 19. She was taken to the outdoor cage to await transportation for psychiatric care.
The sergeant who saw Powell lose consciousness never reported that to supervisors, despite the fact that Powell said she was having trouble breathing, according to the investigation.
At least 20 inmates told investigators that Powell was denied water for most or all of the time she was in her cage, despite regular requests. Those reports were bitterly disputed by officers, who insisted that Powell was given water.
After more than two hours in the sun, Powell asked to be taken back to her indoor cell. She was denied.
Powell also was denied a request to use the restroom and defecated in the cage. An officer saw that Powell had soiled herself but left her where she was, the investigation found. Medical personnel later found feces underneath her fingernails and all over her back.
The psychiatric unit to which Powell was awaiting transport should have accepted her hours before she died, the report said, but a series of miscommunications prevented her being taken in.
The Corrections Department had recommended negligent-homicide charges against seven corrections officers: Esmeralda Pegues, Evan Hazelton, Iain Fenyves, Electra Allen, Cortez Agnew, Anita Macias and Ariana Mena.
A presentation to the County Attorney's Office said the officers were "negligent in providing the appropriate shade and water a reasonable person should have known needed to be provided" to a person in Powell's situation.
The Maricopa County Attorney's Office has declined to pursue criminal charges in the death of Marcia Powell, a state prison inmate who died of heat-related causes after being left in an outdoor cage for hours.
The Department of Corrections had recommended that seven corrections officers on duty that day be charged with negligent homicide in connection with Powell's death. But there was not enough evidence to prosecute them, said Paul Ahler, chief deputy prosecutor.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/09/01/20100901goodyear-inmate-heat-death-brk.html#ixzz0yRXqfkvo
Friday, September 3, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Prison Is Designed To Break Ones Spirit
Prison is designed to break ones spirit and destroy ones resolve. To do this the authorities attempt to exploit every weakness, demolish every initiative, negate all signs of individuality - all with the idea of stamping out that spark that makes each of us human and each of us who we are.
-Nelson Mandela
-Nelson Mandela
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
SC. Inmate Beaten By Prison Guard
SC deputy investigated, fired after inmate beating
CAMDEN, S.C. — Authorities say a deputy has been fired after being caught on video beating a South Carolina inmate dozens of times in the legs with a baton or pipe.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said Monday that state police and the FBI are investigating whether the civil rights of inmate Charles Shelley were violated. Columbia television station WIS-TV aired the surveillance video of the beating Thursday and reported that Shelly's leg was broken and he needed stitches.
Kershaw County Sheriff Steve McCaskill said the deputy was fired. The sheriff did not give the deputy's name.
Shelley told the station he had been arrested on an outstanding warrant and other violations. WIS said the deputy reported the inmate threatened him.
CAMDEN, S.C. — Authorities say a deputy has been fired after being caught on video beating a South Carolina inmate dozens of times in the legs with a baton or pipe.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said Monday that state police and the FBI are investigating whether the civil rights of inmate Charles Shelley were violated. Columbia television station WIS-TV aired the surveillance video of the beating Thursday and reported that Shelly's leg was broken and he needed stitches.
Kershaw County Sheriff Steve McCaskill said the deputy was fired. The sheriff did not give the deputy's name.
Shelley told the station he had been arrested on an outstanding warrant and other violations. WIS said the deputy reported the inmate threatened him.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Federal Oversight for Troubled N.Y. Youth Prisons
Federal Oversight for Troubled N.Y. Youth Prisons
Four of New York’s most dangerous and troubled youth prisons will be placed under federal oversight, strict new limits will be imposed on the use of physical force by guards, and dozens of psychiatrists, counselors and investigators will be hired under a sweeping agreement finalized on Wednesday between state and federal official
The agreement will usher in the most significant expansion of mental health services in years for youths in custody, the vast majority of whom suffer from drug or alcohol problems, developmental disabilities or mental health problems.
Currently, the state does not have a single full-time psychiatrist on staff to treat young offenders.
Guards at the youth prisons, known as youth counselors, will be barred from physically restraining youths except when a person’s physical safety is threatened or a youth is trying to escape from the institution.
Guards will be allowed to use the most controversial method — in which a youth is forced to the ground and held face-down — for at most three minutes, with evaluation by a doctor to follow within four hours.
The accord comes almost a year after the Justice Department threatened to take over New York’s juvenile justice system unless the state took significant steps to rectify problems at the four prisons, where physical abuse was rampant and mental health counseling was scant or nonexistent.
“It is New York’s fundamental responsibility to protect juveniles in its custody from harm and to uphold their constitutional rights,” Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said in a statement. “We have worked cooperatively with New York officials to craft an agreement to ensure that the constitutional rights of juveniles at the four facilities are protected, and we commend New York and the New York State Office of Children and Families for their willingness to work aggressively to remedy these problems.”
Federal investigators found that staff members at the four institutions — the Lansing Residential Center and the Louis Gossett Jr. Residential Center, in Lansing, and two residences, one for boys and one for girls, at Tryon Residential Center in Johnstown — routinely used physical force to discipline the youths, resulting in broken bones, shattered teeth, concussions and dozens of other serious injuries in a period of less than two years.
Introducing Legislation in June to let judges sentence youths to juvenile prisons only if they had been found guilty of a violent crime or a sex crime or were deemed to be a serious threat to themselves or others. Juvenile prisons house those convicted of criminal acts, from truancy to murder, who are too young to serve in adult jails and prisons.
The federal inquiry began in 2007 after a spate of episodes, including the 2006 death of a disturbed 15-year-old after two employees at the Tryon center pinned him down on the ground.
Two monitors, jointly chosen by federal and state officials, will oversee the state’s efforts to carry out the accord over the next two years, making regular progress reports to a federal judge, who must approve the agreement before it goes into effect
The state-federal accord, filed in United States District Court in Albany, echoes recommendations issued in December by a state task force, which found major shortcomings throughout the youth prison system. The task force recommended substantially expanding mental health care and replacing most residential youth prisons with smaller centers closer to communities where most young offenders and their families are from.
It Will require all youth prisons in New York to abide by the restrictions on physical restraint. She said the state also planned to hire a chief psychiatrist in the near future to oversee drug regimens and mental health counseling at all of the state’s youth prisons.
But advocates for youths in state custody said they would continue to seek a far-reaching transformation in the juvenile justice system in New York, which they say merely warehouses youths who in most cases need intensive psychiatric care and counseling rather than being locked up.
“The changes will only affect those kids who have mental health needs who are already incarcerated,” said Gabrielle Prisco, director of the Juvenile Justice Project at the Correctional Association of New York. “It doesn’t get to the fact that any of those young people could be safely treated in their communities without ever seeing the inside of a prison cell.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/nyregion/15juvenile.html?scp=13&sq=juveniles%20/us&st=cse
Four of New York’s most dangerous and troubled youth prisons will be placed under federal oversight, strict new limits will be imposed on the use of physical force by guards, and dozens of psychiatrists, counselors and investigators will be hired under a sweeping agreement finalized on Wednesday between state and federal official
The agreement will usher in the most significant expansion of mental health services in years for youths in custody, the vast majority of whom suffer from drug or alcohol problems, developmental disabilities or mental health problems.
Currently, the state does not have a single full-time psychiatrist on staff to treat young offenders.
Guards at the youth prisons, known as youth counselors, will be barred from physically restraining youths except when a person’s physical safety is threatened or a youth is trying to escape from the institution.
Guards will be allowed to use the most controversial method — in which a youth is forced to the ground and held face-down — for at most three minutes, with evaluation by a doctor to follow within four hours.
The accord comes almost a year after the Justice Department threatened to take over New York’s juvenile justice system unless the state took significant steps to rectify problems at the four prisons, where physical abuse was rampant and mental health counseling was scant or nonexistent.
“It is New York’s fundamental responsibility to protect juveniles in its custody from harm and to uphold their constitutional rights,” Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said in a statement. “We have worked cooperatively with New York officials to craft an agreement to ensure that the constitutional rights of juveniles at the four facilities are protected, and we commend New York and the New York State Office of Children and Families for their willingness to work aggressively to remedy these problems.”
Federal investigators found that staff members at the four institutions — the Lansing Residential Center and the Louis Gossett Jr. Residential Center, in Lansing, and two residences, one for boys and one for girls, at Tryon Residential Center in Johnstown — routinely used physical force to discipline the youths, resulting in broken bones, shattered teeth, concussions and dozens of other serious injuries in a period of less than two years.
Introducing Legislation in June to let judges sentence youths to juvenile prisons only if they had been found guilty of a violent crime or a sex crime or were deemed to be a serious threat to themselves or others. Juvenile prisons house those convicted of criminal acts, from truancy to murder, who are too young to serve in adult jails and prisons.
The federal inquiry began in 2007 after a spate of episodes, including the 2006 death of a disturbed 15-year-old after two employees at the Tryon center pinned him down on the ground.
Two monitors, jointly chosen by federal and state officials, will oversee the state’s efforts to carry out the accord over the next two years, making regular progress reports to a federal judge, who must approve the agreement before it goes into effect
The state-federal accord, filed in United States District Court in Albany, echoes recommendations issued in December by a state task force, which found major shortcomings throughout the youth prison system. The task force recommended substantially expanding mental health care and replacing most residential youth prisons with smaller centers closer to communities where most young offenders and their families are from.
It Will require all youth prisons in New York to abide by the restrictions on physical restraint. She said the state also planned to hire a chief psychiatrist in the near future to oversee drug regimens and mental health counseling at all of the state’s youth prisons.
But advocates for youths in state custody said they would continue to seek a far-reaching transformation in the juvenile justice system in New York, which they say merely warehouses youths who in most cases need intensive psychiatric care and counseling rather than being locked up.
“The changes will only affect those kids who have mental health needs who are already incarcerated,” said Gabrielle Prisco, director of the Juvenile Justice Project at the Correctional Association of New York. “It doesn’t get to the fact that any of those young people could be safely treated in their communities without ever seeing the inside of a prison cell.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/nyregion/15juvenile.html?scp=13&sq=juveniles%20/us&st=cse
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Suspicious Death In Maine State Prison
Another Suspicious Death in Maine State Prison’s Lockdown Unit
AUGUST 3, 2010
by James Ridgeway
Maine Attorney General Janet Mills reportedly will review the results of an investigation by the state police into the death of a prisoner named Victor Valdez, who died last November in the Special Management Unit (SMU) of Maine State Prison. While the Maine Department of Corrections says he died of natural causes, inmates who say they witnessed the incidents insist he was beaten and abused by prison staff, who also hindered him from receiving treatment for a serious medical condition.
Lance Tapley, who has written before about abuses in the SMU, published a lengthy article on Valdez’s death last week in the Portland Phoenix. As Tapley described the situation:
[Valdez] was a very sick man. His kidneys had failed, and he had required dialysis treatment several times a week for eight years, via a stent implanted in his arm. He also suffered from congestive heart failure, cirrhosis of the liver, and lung problems, according to court documents filed prior to his sentencing in 2009 to four years’ incarceration for a 2008 aggravated assault in Portland…While at the prison, which is in the coastal village of Warren, he received his dialysis at Miles Memorial Hospital in Damariscotta.
Various inmates described the treatment of Valdez in letters to the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition, a group that actively opposes the abuse of solitary confinement in Maine’s prisons. One reason for the beating by guards, one letter said, was their anger at having to take Valdez to dialysis treatments at a nearby hospital early in the morning. An inmate named Jeff wrote to Coalition member Judy Garvey that staff had “ripped out” Valdez’s dialysis tubes in order to cart him off to the SMU for breaking a prison rule, “and he bled all over the place.” Another inmate named Joel OlavarrÃa Rivera, a friend of Valdez, wrote to Garvey in Spanish (here translated by Eda Trajo of El Centro Latino in Portland):
I saw how the officers abused Victor Valdez. I saw the officers cover him with pepper spray and they took him away to check his blood pressure, and afterwards they put him back in the cell without cleaning the cell or him. When the officers put him back in his cell I could smell the pepper spray because it’s so strong. And Victor fell on the floor and he stayed like that with all that stink of pepper spray.
In 10 minutes they called code blue. When the medics came Victor was foaming at the mouth, which came from the pepper spray. They left the pepper spray on him and they didn’t clean it. I thought he was dead because he was a sick man and the pepper spray made it difficult to breathe. The next day they brought him back one room closer to mine, and he tells me that they didn’t want to take him to dialysis and that they forced him to sign a document that says he doesn’t want to go to dialysis. And he doesn’t read English and they don’t even translate for him. He can’t miss dialysis or he’ll die and therefore they’ve forced him to sign for his own death.
Shortly before his death, according to Garvey, inmates were ordered to return to their cells immediately. Valdez, who was hard of hearing and had limited English, did not respond right away. Other prisoners told Garvey he was then beaten and pepper sprayed. Valdez died less than a week later.
Initially Denise Lord, the Associate Corrections Commissioner, told the Bangor Daily News that Valdez had died of “medical causes in the hospital.” However, as Tapley points out:
[N]o state medical examiner looked at Valdez’s body, despite a prison protocol requiring the prison to notify the state police to see if they wished to investigate a prisoner’s death. The medical examiner’s office, part of the attorney general’s office, works hand in glove with the state police. The medical examiner’s office assistant told the Phoenix that Valdez’s death “didn’t meet our criteria” because he was “sick enough” to have died from natural causes. In such a case, a prison physician would sign the death certificate, she said. But who signed it and the cause of death listed is information unavailable to the press and general public, according to the state’s Office of Vital Records.
According to Tapley’s article, Valdez’ mother, at the time traveling out of the country, gave permission for his body to be cremated.
After Garvey and other prison reformers launched a campaign for an investigation, Attorney General Mills asked the state police to prepare a report on the causes of death. She is expected to announce the findings soon. In the meantime, Garvey has sought information from Associate Corrections Commissioner Denise Lord on the details surrounding the death.
.. Who certified Mr. Valdez’s death and at what date and time?
Lord: Medical information is confidential and we cannot disclose this to a member of the public without consent…
Tapley cites Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News, who told him that it is “quite common for prisons to cover up and restrict the info on prisoner beatings, deaths, etc., and it generally works quite well. . . . The use of laws on medical privacy to cover up wrongdoing is also fairly widespread.”
This is not the first suspicious death to take place in Maine State Prison’s SMU. The death of an aging prisoner named Sheldon Weinstein is referenced in Tapley’s article, and was also described here on Solitary Watch by former Maine State Prison chaplain Stan Moody.
http://solitarywatch.com/2010/08/03/another-suspicious-death-in-maine-state-prisons-lockdown-unit/
AUGUST 3, 2010
by James Ridgeway
Maine Attorney General Janet Mills reportedly will review the results of an investigation by the state police into the death of a prisoner named Victor Valdez, who died last November in the Special Management Unit (SMU) of Maine State Prison. While the Maine Department of Corrections says he died of natural causes, inmates who say they witnessed the incidents insist he was beaten and abused by prison staff, who also hindered him from receiving treatment for a serious medical condition.
Lance Tapley, who has written before about abuses in the SMU, published a lengthy article on Valdez’s death last week in the Portland Phoenix. As Tapley described the situation:
[Valdez] was a very sick man. His kidneys had failed, and he had required dialysis treatment several times a week for eight years, via a stent implanted in his arm. He also suffered from congestive heart failure, cirrhosis of the liver, and lung problems, according to court documents filed prior to his sentencing in 2009 to four years’ incarceration for a 2008 aggravated assault in Portland…While at the prison, which is in the coastal village of Warren, he received his dialysis at Miles Memorial Hospital in Damariscotta.
Various inmates described the treatment of Valdez in letters to the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition, a group that actively opposes the abuse of solitary confinement in Maine’s prisons. One reason for the beating by guards, one letter said, was their anger at having to take Valdez to dialysis treatments at a nearby hospital early in the morning. An inmate named Jeff wrote to Coalition member Judy Garvey that staff had “ripped out” Valdez’s dialysis tubes in order to cart him off to the SMU for breaking a prison rule, “and he bled all over the place.” Another inmate named Joel OlavarrÃa Rivera, a friend of Valdez, wrote to Garvey in Spanish (here translated by Eda Trajo of El Centro Latino in Portland):
I saw how the officers abused Victor Valdez. I saw the officers cover him with pepper spray and they took him away to check his blood pressure, and afterwards they put him back in the cell without cleaning the cell or him. When the officers put him back in his cell I could smell the pepper spray because it’s so strong. And Victor fell on the floor and he stayed like that with all that stink of pepper spray.
In 10 minutes they called code blue. When the medics came Victor was foaming at the mouth, which came from the pepper spray. They left the pepper spray on him and they didn’t clean it. I thought he was dead because he was a sick man and the pepper spray made it difficult to breathe. The next day they brought him back one room closer to mine, and he tells me that they didn’t want to take him to dialysis and that they forced him to sign a document that says he doesn’t want to go to dialysis. And he doesn’t read English and they don’t even translate for him. He can’t miss dialysis or he’ll die and therefore they’ve forced him to sign for his own death.
Shortly before his death, according to Garvey, inmates were ordered to return to their cells immediately. Valdez, who was hard of hearing and had limited English, did not respond right away. Other prisoners told Garvey he was then beaten and pepper sprayed. Valdez died less than a week later.
Initially Denise Lord, the Associate Corrections Commissioner, told the Bangor Daily News that Valdez had died of “medical causes in the hospital.” However, as Tapley points out:
[N]o state medical examiner looked at Valdez’s body, despite a prison protocol requiring the prison to notify the state police to see if they wished to investigate a prisoner’s death. The medical examiner’s office, part of the attorney general’s office, works hand in glove with the state police. The medical examiner’s office assistant told the Phoenix that Valdez’s death “didn’t meet our criteria” because he was “sick enough” to have died from natural causes. In such a case, a prison physician would sign the death certificate, she said. But who signed it and the cause of death listed is information unavailable to the press and general public, according to the state’s Office of Vital Records.
According to Tapley’s article, Valdez’ mother, at the time traveling out of the country, gave permission for his body to be cremated.
After Garvey and other prison reformers launched a campaign for an investigation, Attorney General Mills asked the state police to prepare a report on the causes of death. She is expected to announce the findings soon. In the meantime, Garvey has sought information from Associate Corrections Commissioner Denise Lord on the details surrounding the death.
.. Who certified Mr. Valdez’s death and at what date and time?
Lord: Medical information is confidential and we cannot disclose this to a member of the public without consent…
Tapley cites Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News, who told him that it is “quite common for prisons to cover up and restrict the info on prisoner beatings, deaths, etc., and it generally works quite well. . . . The use of laws on medical privacy to cover up wrongdoing is also fairly widespread.”
This is not the first suspicious death to take place in Maine State Prison’s SMU. The death of an aging prisoner named Sheldon Weinstein is referenced in Tapley’s article, and was also described here on Solitary Watch by former Maine State Prison chaplain Stan Moody.
http://solitarywatch.com/2010/08/03/another-suspicious-death-in-maine-state-prisons-lockdown-unit/
Sunday, August 1, 2010
California Inmates Abused And Have Rights Violated
'Daniel into the lion's den'
Another factor undermines the appeals process, according to prisoners and former officers: fear.
Edgar Martinez, back home after a recent term at High Desert, claimed that guards trampled his belongings and strip-searched him in a snow-covered yard. He said he watched guards provoke fights among inmates and tell others, "this 602 needs to go away or we're going to make your life a living hell." Afterward, Martinez said, he was too terrified to protest mistreatment.
In one 2007 case, said Edwards, the former lieutenant, several inmates were brutally beaten by guards and denied adequate treatment. None filed a complaint. "Nothing ever came of that incident. Not a damn thing," he said.
Inmates sometimes refrain from reporting abuse to avoid being shipped to other facilities. "There are staff who say, 'He's a pain, get rid of him,' " then transfer the prisoner to a location dominated by his racial or ethnic enemies, Cervantes said, "like Daniel into the lion's den."
Kernan defended the process for discovering and punishing misconduct, which includes independent oversight, court supervision and avenues for inmates and officers to complain anonymously to outside watchdogs.
The state Inspector General's Office closely monitors some investigations of serious lapses by staff, including excessive force, sexual misconduct and dishonesty. Last year it agreed with the prisons' handling of the vast majority of such cases.
Lee Seale, corrections deputy chief of staff, called that record "a departmental success story."
In 2009, 42 officers or sergeants were dismissed in misconduct cases involving prisoners. That total did not include those fired for granting prisoners special favors.
However, when officers caused moderate to severe inmate injuries – or deaths – discipline was relatively light. The Bee examined all 15 such episodes monitored by the inspector general in 2009, involving 32 officers. Eight were dismissed; most received small pay cuts or short suspensions.
In one case, an officer needlessly punched a prisoner in the head, broke his elbows and lied about it in reports. The penalty: a 12-day suspension.
An officer assigned to monitor inmates on suicide watch failed to do so and falsified his records. When he eventually did his check, he overlooked the fact that one prisoner was dead. He "also failed to notice a note the deceased inmate posted in a window on his cell door," the inspector general's report notes, "indicating his intent to commit suicide."
That officer's salary was cut by 10 percent for two years.
Such cases suggest that California prisons lack a workable process to impose reasonable discipline, said Elyse Clawson, a former correctional official in two states who served on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2007 expert panel that examined the state prison system.
"You have to wonder," she said, "if there is a (prison) culture that assigns much value to what happens to inmates."
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/01/2928417/rights-of-prisoners-under-siege.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=1387966#Comments_Container#ixzz0vPmSRZAl
Another factor undermines the appeals process, according to prisoners and former officers: fear.
Edgar Martinez, back home after a recent term at High Desert, claimed that guards trampled his belongings and strip-searched him in a snow-covered yard. He said he watched guards provoke fights among inmates and tell others, "this 602 needs to go away or we're going to make your life a living hell." Afterward, Martinez said, he was too terrified to protest mistreatment.
In one 2007 case, said Edwards, the former lieutenant, several inmates were brutally beaten by guards and denied adequate treatment. None filed a complaint. "Nothing ever came of that incident. Not a damn thing," he said.
Inmates sometimes refrain from reporting abuse to avoid being shipped to other facilities. "There are staff who say, 'He's a pain, get rid of him,' " then transfer the prisoner to a location dominated by his racial or ethnic enemies, Cervantes said, "like Daniel into the lion's den."
Kernan defended the process for discovering and punishing misconduct, which includes independent oversight, court supervision and avenues for inmates and officers to complain anonymously to outside watchdogs.
The state Inspector General's Office closely monitors some investigations of serious lapses by staff, including excessive force, sexual misconduct and dishonesty. Last year it agreed with the prisons' handling of the vast majority of such cases.
Lee Seale, corrections deputy chief of staff, called that record "a departmental success story."
In 2009, 42 officers or sergeants were dismissed in misconduct cases involving prisoners. That total did not include those fired for granting prisoners special favors.
However, when officers caused moderate to severe inmate injuries – or deaths – discipline was relatively light. The Bee examined all 15 such episodes monitored by the inspector general in 2009, involving 32 officers. Eight were dismissed; most received small pay cuts or short suspensions.
In one case, an officer needlessly punched a prisoner in the head, broke his elbows and lied about it in reports. The penalty: a 12-day suspension.
An officer assigned to monitor inmates on suicide watch failed to do so and falsified his records. When he eventually did his check, he overlooked the fact that one prisoner was dead. He "also failed to notice a note the deceased inmate posted in a window on his cell door," the inspector general's report notes, "indicating his intent to commit suicide."
That officer's salary was cut by 10 percent for two years.
Such cases suggest that California prisons lack a workable process to impose reasonable discipline, said Elyse Clawson, a former correctional official in two states who served on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2007 expert panel that examined the state prison system.
"You have to wonder," she said, "if there is a (prison) culture that assigns much value to what happens to inmates."
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/01/2928417/rights-of-prisoners-under-siege.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=1387966#Comments_Container#ixzz0vPmSRZAl
Saturday, July 10, 2010
RESTRAINT_AND_SECLUSION Used In School
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
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
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