15 yr old Teen girl in jail beating video speaks out on cop attacking her in Police brutality case
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDzQ8Vay3Pg&feature=share
Friday, January 6, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Prisoner Going Home For Christmas
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 5:48 AM
Subject: RIP James Walker - Murdered by the United States of America
James Walker, age 67, in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Edgefield, South Carolina, died Saturday night after begging for medical care and being ignored. He had asked that I tell his story after reading about Mr. Waters' amputations. He had hoped - briefly - that the exposure of his medical abuse - which is torture to ignore someone begging for help until they die - would compel the federal employees to do something to save his life. But before I could get his information, he was moved to the local hospital where he died.
What now? Shrugging and doing nothing makes us part of the problem. These men are human beings, our brothers.
Mr. Walker was supposed to go home in April. Instead, his family will have to pay to have his dead body sent home for Christmas. It gives a whole new meaning to "home for Christmas", doesn't it. We can hope his spirit is at peace in his eternal home, and offer prayers for the comfort of his family. Mr. Walker died a horrible death that did not have to be. What if he was your son, brother, husband, daddy, or friend?
Story.http://www.ordinarypeoplechangetheworld.com/articles/the-starfish-story.aspx
Subject: RIP James Walker - Murdered by the United States of America
James Walker, age 67, in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Edgefield, South Carolina, died Saturday night after begging for medical care and being ignored. He had asked that I tell his story after reading about Mr. Waters' amputations. He had hoped - briefly - that the exposure of his medical abuse - which is torture to ignore someone begging for help until they die - would compel the federal employees to do something to save his life. But before I could get his information, he was moved to the local hospital where he died.
What now? Shrugging and doing nothing makes us part of the problem. These men are human beings, our brothers.
Mr. Walker was supposed to go home in April. Instead, his family will have to pay to have his dead body sent home for Christmas. It gives a whole new meaning to "home for Christmas", doesn't it. We can hope his spirit is at peace in his eternal home, and offer prayers for the comfort of his family. Mr. Walker died a horrible death that did not have to be. What if he was your son, brother, husband, daddy, or friend?
Story.http://www.ordinarypeoplechangetheworld.com/articles/the-starfish-story.aspx
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Solitary Confinement And The Death An Adolescent Prisoner Rikers Island
Solitary Confinement on Rikers Island: An Interview with the Prisoners Rights Project
by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella
We do agree that there is currently an increase of violence in the City jails. Our contacts with the jail population show an increase in injurious violence by staff against prisoners, which is confirmed by data on the DOC web site indicating an increase in uses of force with injury: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doc/html/stats/doc_stats.shtml.
It is three years since adolescent prisoner Christopher Robinson was killed by other prisoners with uniformed DOC staff complicity as part of a sadistic society referred to as “The Program.” Three DOC staff members were criminally indicted for their participation in the violent group. Two Correction Officers pled guilty last month and another Correction Officer and seven inmates are still awaiting trial.
The Legal Aid Society continues to receive complaints from prisoners of assaults and threats under circumstances suggesting continued staff complicity or acquiescence. We have brought several cases for inmates beaten by gang members at the solicitation of, or with the facilitation of DOC staff. We have litigated a number of class action injunctive cases, and damage cases on behalf of City inmates severely injured in staff beatings and these cases have settled for sums totaling millions of dollars.
SW: What are your thoughts on the relationship between the high number of inmates with mental illness at Rikers and the high rate of solitary confinement?
PWP: We are extremely concerned that a significant number of detainees and prisoners with serious mental illness are confined in harmful solitary confinement in the NYC jails. The mental health treatment program in the City jails is not effective. Individuals with inadequately treated mental illness who cannot conform their behavior to jail rules due to untreated symptoms or who are punished for symptomatic behavior, end up in solitary confinement where their condition worsens and they may accumulate additional disciplinary infractions and sentences to isolated punitive segregation.
SW: We understand that a number of the new punitive segregation cells are for adolescents. What do you think about this? Are there alternative ways to deal with violence among the teenagers at Rikers?
PWP: Christopher Robinson, the murdered inmate discussed above, was only 18 at the time of his death. “The Program,” in which DOC staff was complicit and which beat him to death, was in the juvenile facility on Rikers. Clearly DOC has a lot to do to train its staff and learn to manage the adolescent population in a humane manner. However, the idea that the solution is to utilize punitive segregation cells as a first resort is ill founded.
The adolescent population requires adequate supervision by staff who are trained to deal with the adolescent population and are trained in recognizing mental health issues in adolescents. Adding and utilizing punitive segregation cells for adolescents is a terrible threat to young people’s mental health and a grossly inadequate response to young prisoners with mental health issues. The correct response would include increased mental health services and to provide adequate close supervision of the adolescent population to control the level of violence in it.
SW: Why are you among the organizations convening the December 1 meeting now, and what do you hope it might accomplish?
PWP: The Legal Aid Society is hosting the development of a new coalition of organizations and individuals – advocacy, mental health, prison family members, ex-offenders – to work together on issues of concern in the City jails. This came out of our work with the Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary Confinement coalition (MHASC). The work of MHASC resulted in the passage of the SHU Exclusion Law limiting the use of solitary confinement of prisoners with mental illness in the New York state prisons. We hope to duplicate reforms won in the state prisons and to provide the community with a voice in the current discussion about the prevalence of individuals with mental illness in the City jails and other issues of concern. We believe that other issues will include over-use of solitary confinement (regardless of mental health), lack of needed mental health treatment and housing options in general, and problems with brutality and other forms of mistreatment.
You asked above whether increasing punitive segregation cells is the correct way to deal with the increase in violence at the City jails. We do not believe that an increase in punitive segregation cells is an appropriate response to the myriad problems in the City jails. The culture of brutality by DOC staff has not been sufficiently redressed through oversight and training. There is a failure to provide the population of detainees with mental health needs with sufficient treatment that would accommodate their disability and permit them to participate in the jail program without running afoul of disciplinary rules. Training, oversight and improved mental health care should be the first response to reducing the level of violence in the jails.
Contrary to the COBA presentation of this issue, punitive segregation is not solely utilized for those who have committed violent infractions. DOC should do a utilization analysis of its segregation population to identify prisoners in segregation who do not merit such isolating and punitive confinement. Although this has been recommended, DOC has declined to do this analysis in the past, and we do not know if the present administration has remedied that omission.
We do agree that there is currently an increase of violence in the City jails. Our contacts with the jail population show an increase in injurious violence by staff against prisoners, which is confirmed by data on the DOC web site indicating an increase in uses of force with injury: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doc/html/stats/doc_stats.shtml.
Last week we wrote about the dramatic increase in the use of solitary confinement currently underway on Rikers Island. By the end of this year, Rikers will have close to 1,000 "punitive segregation" units for a population of 12,700 inmates--giving the island prison one of the highest rates of solitary confinement in the country (and thus, the industrialized world). The majority of the prisoners on Rikers are awaiting trial, while the rest are serving short prison terms of up to one year. Approximately one-third of them suffer from mental illness, and more than 800 are juveniles.
The New York City Department of Corrections (DOC) and Corrections Officers Benevolent Association (COBA) say that the increase in solitary confinement is a necessary response to increased violence at Rikers. A number of groups that advocate for prisoners disagree. Among these is the Legal Aid Society's Prisoners Rights Project (PRP), which, "protects and enforces the legal rights of New York City and New York State prisoners through litigation, advice, and assistance to individual prisoners," according to its mission statement. PRP is the host and co-sponsor of a meeting to take place on December 1 to discuss issues of concern in New York City jails, including the rising use of solitary. In response to a set of questions emailed by Solitary Watch, the PRP's Sarah Kerr, John Boston, and Jonathan Chasan provided the following analysis.
=====
SW: The DOC is clearly presenting what they call a "chronic shortage" of punitive segregation beds as a primary reason for the recent rise in violent incidents at Rikers. They are also presenting the increase in isolation beds as the best--perhaps the only--way to deal with this problem. What would you say in response to this?
PWP: We do not believe that there is a genuine shortage of segregation beds. In fact, the jail population is several thousand prisoners lower than it was in the late 1990s, when there were fewer segregation beds than there are today. To the contrary we are finding that there are problems with Department of Correction policies and practices which are artificially inflating the need for segregation beds without dealing with problems in jail management.
For example, the disciplinary process is often a sham in which due process requirements are not observed. The Legal Aid Society has received numerous complaints from prisoners who report being falsely marked as refusing their disciplinary hearings, and who were then sentenced to punitive segregation without having a hearing. Punitive segregation sentences are artificially inflated by bringing multiple charges for the same actions if they affected more than one person.
We believe a substantial number of people are wrongly held in punitive segregation. Some of these prisoners were assaulted by correction staff, sometimes as a result of minor rules violations or purely verbal misconduct, and then charged with assault on staff—a very common complaint, and one we find credible based on lengthy experience litigating cases of misuse of force by DOC staff.
http://solitarywatch.com/2011/11/28/solitary-confinement-on-rikers-island-an-interview-with-the-prisoners-rights-project/#more-4378
by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella
We do agree that there is currently an increase of violence in the City jails. Our contacts with the jail population show an increase in injurious violence by staff against prisoners, which is confirmed by data on the DOC web site indicating an increase in uses of force with injury: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doc/html/stats/doc_stats.shtml.
It is three years since adolescent prisoner Christopher Robinson was killed by other prisoners with uniformed DOC staff complicity as part of a sadistic society referred to as “The Program.” Three DOC staff members were criminally indicted for their participation in the violent group. Two Correction Officers pled guilty last month and another Correction Officer and seven inmates are still awaiting trial.
The Legal Aid Society continues to receive complaints from prisoners of assaults and threats under circumstances suggesting continued staff complicity or acquiescence. We have brought several cases for inmates beaten by gang members at the solicitation of, or with the facilitation of DOC staff. We have litigated a number of class action injunctive cases, and damage cases on behalf of City inmates severely injured in staff beatings and these cases have settled for sums totaling millions of dollars.
SW: What are your thoughts on the relationship between the high number of inmates with mental illness at Rikers and the high rate of solitary confinement?
PWP: We are extremely concerned that a significant number of detainees and prisoners with serious mental illness are confined in harmful solitary confinement in the NYC jails. The mental health treatment program in the City jails is not effective. Individuals with inadequately treated mental illness who cannot conform their behavior to jail rules due to untreated symptoms or who are punished for symptomatic behavior, end up in solitary confinement where their condition worsens and they may accumulate additional disciplinary infractions and sentences to isolated punitive segregation.
SW: We understand that a number of the new punitive segregation cells are for adolescents. What do you think about this? Are there alternative ways to deal with violence among the teenagers at Rikers?
PWP: Christopher Robinson, the murdered inmate discussed above, was only 18 at the time of his death. “The Program,” in which DOC staff was complicit and which beat him to death, was in the juvenile facility on Rikers. Clearly DOC has a lot to do to train its staff and learn to manage the adolescent population in a humane manner. However, the idea that the solution is to utilize punitive segregation cells as a first resort is ill founded.
The adolescent population requires adequate supervision by staff who are trained to deal with the adolescent population and are trained in recognizing mental health issues in adolescents. Adding and utilizing punitive segregation cells for adolescents is a terrible threat to young people’s mental health and a grossly inadequate response to young prisoners with mental health issues. The correct response would include increased mental health services and to provide adequate close supervision of the adolescent population to control the level of violence in it.
SW: Why are you among the organizations convening the December 1 meeting now, and what do you hope it might accomplish?
PWP: The Legal Aid Society is hosting the development of a new coalition of organizations and individuals – advocacy, mental health, prison family members, ex-offenders – to work together on issues of concern in the City jails. This came out of our work with the Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary Confinement coalition (MHASC). The work of MHASC resulted in the passage of the SHU Exclusion Law limiting the use of solitary confinement of prisoners with mental illness in the New York state prisons. We hope to duplicate reforms won in the state prisons and to provide the community with a voice in the current discussion about the prevalence of individuals with mental illness in the City jails and other issues of concern. We believe that other issues will include over-use of solitary confinement (regardless of mental health), lack of needed mental health treatment and housing options in general, and problems with brutality and other forms of mistreatment.
You asked above whether increasing punitive segregation cells is the correct way to deal with the increase in violence at the City jails. We do not believe that an increase in punitive segregation cells is an appropriate response to the myriad problems in the City jails. The culture of brutality by DOC staff has not been sufficiently redressed through oversight and training. There is a failure to provide the population of detainees with mental health needs with sufficient treatment that would accommodate their disability and permit them to participate in the jail program without running afoul of disciplinary rules. Training, oversight and improved mental health care should be the first response to reducing the level of violence in the jails.
Contrary to the COBA presentation of this issue, punitive segregation is not solely utilized for those who have committed violent infractions. DOC should do a utilization analysis of its segregation population to identify prisoners in segregation who do not merit such isolating and punitive confinement. Although this has been recommended, DOC has declined to do this analysis in the past, and we do not know if the present administration has remedied that omission.
We do agree that there is currently an increase of violence in the City jails. Our contacts with the jail population show an increase in injurious violence by staff against prisoners, which is confirmed by data on the DOC web site indicating an increase in uses of force with injury: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doc/html/stats/doc_stats.shtml.
Last week we wrote about the dramatic increase in the use of solitary confinement currently underway on Rikers Island. By the end of this year, Rikers will have close to 1,000 "punitive segregation" units for a population of 12,700 inmates--giving the island prison one of the highest rates of solitary confinement in the country (and thus, the industrialized world). The majority of the prisoners on Rikers are awaiting trial, while the rest are serving short prison terms of up to one year. Approximately one-third of them suffer from mental illness, and more than 800 are juveniles.
The New York City Department of Corrections (DOC) and Corrections Officers Benevolent Association (COBA) say that the increase in solitary confinement is a necessary response to increased violence at Rikers. A number of groups that advocate for prisoners disagree. Among these is the Legal Aid Society's Prisoners Rights Project (PRP), which, "protects and enforces the legal rights of New York City and New York State prisoners through litigation, advice, and assistance to individual prisoners," according to its mission statement. PRP is the host and co-sponsor of a meeting to take place on December 1 to discuss issues of concern in New York City jails, including the rising use of solitary. In response to a set of questions emailed by Solitary Watch, the PRP's Sarah Kerr, John Boston, and Jonathan Chasan provided the following analysis.
=====
SW: The DOC is clearly presenting what they call a "chronic shortage" of punitive segregation beds as a primary reason for the recent rise in violent incidents at Rikers. They are also presenting the increase in isolation beds as the best--perhaps the only--way to deal with this problem. What would you say in response to this?
PWP: We do not believe that there is a genuine shortage of segregation beds. In fact, the jail population is several thousand prisoners lower than it was in the late 1990s, when there were fewer segregation beds than there are today. To the contrary we are finding that there are problems with Department of Correction policies and practices which are artificially inflating the need for segregation beds without dealing with problems in jail management.
For example, the disciplinary process is often a sham in which due process requirements are not observed. The Legal Aid Society has received numerous complaints from prisoners who report being falsely marked as refusing their disciplinary hearings, and who were then sentenced to punitive segregation without having a hearing. Punitive segregation sentences are artificially inflated by bringing multiple charges for the same actions if they affected more than one person.
We believe a substantial number of people are wrongly held in punitive segregation. Some of these prisoners were assaulted by correction staff, sometimes as a result of minor rules violations or purely verbal misconduct, and then charged with assault on staff—a very common complaint, and one we find credible based on lengthy experience litigating cases of misuse of force by DOC staff.
http://solitarywatch.com/2011/11/28/solitary-confinement-on-rikers-island-an-interview-with-the-prisoners-rights-project/#more-4378
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
WARNING! This video may be deeply disturbing to some viewers.
Shocking video shows a child being screamed at while wearing a tire around his neck.
WARNING! This video may be deeply disturbing to some viewers. Do not play it if children are within viewing or listening range.
Click to view VIDEO
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) Police will investigate whether a crime occurred at a youth boot camp after videos surfaced showing instructors shouting at a boy wearing a tire around his neck and children being told to drink water until some vomited.
Investigators will question boot camp operator Kelvin "Sgt. Mac" McFarland, police Cmdr. Darryl Qualls told the Pasadena Star-News (http://bit.ly/vtQb7Q ) on Thursday.
"Looking at the video we can only see McFarland, so we will start the investigation with McFarland," Qualls said.
McFarland earlier denied to the newspaper that he appeared in the videos. A call left for him Friday was not immediately returned.
McFarland was charged earlier this year with child abuse, extortion and other crimes.
Prosecutors contend that he handcuffed a truant 14-year-old girl in May and told her family that she would be sent to juvenile detention unless she was enrolled in his camp. She was never enrolled.
The Star-News this week released short video clips it said were made in 2009.
On one, several instructors in military-style fatigues surround and shout at a boy who is wearing a heavy auto tire. At one point, the boy falls down crying but is ordered to stand again.
In the other, several girls and boys are repeatedly ordered to drink water from colored plastic bottles. Several youngsters vomit.
"I would certainly not subject my son or daughter or any child I know to this type of activity," City Council member Victor Gordo told the newspaper.
"The short clips that I reviewed appeared to be more of a situation of intimidation and humiliation appearing to be employed under the guise of physical activity and discipline," Gordo said.
The Star-News said the videos appear to have been made in Pasadena but did not indicate how it obtained them.
McFarland runs Family First Growth Camp in Pasadena, which like other boot camps uses military-style discipline and exercises with a goal of instilling character and keeping at-risk youngsters away from drugs, alcohol and crime.
The camp "doesn't believe in corporal punishment, nor will it be tolerated," according to a camp website.
"The young men/women who come to us are good kids who have begun to make some poor choices with friends, school, drugs, alcohol, attitude with peers and family members," the website said, adding that through the camp, "these kids seek out, find, then learn to love themselves so they can love their families and start to move in a positive direction."
The camp is funded through a combination of fees and charitable donations. Enrollment is through parents, although in some states juvenile justice systems send some offenders to boot camps.
However, some studies have shown that juvenile offenders sent to boot camps were no less likely to commit new crimes than those who were placed in juvenile detention or given probation.
The Star-News did not specify whether the videos were taken at a Family First training session and noted that some children seemed to be wearing T-shirts from another camp.
Keith "Sarge" Gibbs, who runs Sarge's Community Base/Commit II Achieve Boot Camp, said that some of the children appear to be wearing his camp T-shirts.
McFarland worked for him in 2009 but left to form his own camp after Gibbs learned that he had lied about taking a required background check, Gibbs said.
"He left and took 28 families and kids with him, with my shirts and some paperwork," Gibbs told The Associated Press on Friday.
http://nospank.net/n-u89.htm
WARNING! This video may be deeply disturbing to some viewers. Do not play it if children are within viewing or listening range.
Click to view VIDEO
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) Police will investigate whether a crime occurred at a youth boot camp after videos surfaced showing instructors shouting at a boy wearing a tire around his neck and children being told to drink water until some vomited.
Investigators will question boot camp operator Kelvin "Sgt. Mac" McFarland, police Cmdr. Darryl Qualls told the Pasadena Star-News (http://bit.ly/vtQb7Q ) on Thursday.
"Looking at the video we can only see McFarland, so we will start the investigation with McFarland," Qualls said.
McFarland earlier denied to the newspaper that he appeared in the videos. A call left for him Friday was not immediately returned.
McFarland was charged earlier this year with child abuse, extortion and other crimes.
Prosecutors contend that he handcuffed a truant 14-year-old girl in May and told her family that she would be sent to juvenile detention unless she was enrolled in his camp. She was never enrolled.
The Star-News this week released short video clips it said were made in 2009.
On one, several instructors in military-style fatigues surround and shout at a boy who is wearing a heavy auto tire. At one point, the boy falls down crying but is ordered to stand again.
In the other, several girls and boys are repeatedly ordered to drink water from colored plastic bottles. Several youngsters vomit.
"I would certainly not subject my son or daughter or any child I know to this type of activity," City Council member Victor Gordo told the newspaper.
"The short clips that I reviewed appeared to be more of a situation of intimidation and humiliation appearing to be employed under the guise of physical activity and discipline," Gordo said.
The Star-News said the videos appear to have been made in Pasadena but did not indicate how it obtained them.
McFarland runs Family First Growth Camp in Pasadena, which like other boot camps uses military-style discipline and exercises with a goal of instilling character and keeping at-risk youngsters away from drugs, alcohol and crime.
The camp "doesn't believe in corporal punishment, nor will it be tolerated," according to a camp website.
"The young men/women who come to us are good kids who have begun to make some poor choices with friends, school, drugs, alcohol, attitude with peers and family members," the website said, adding that through the camp, "these kids seek out, find, then learn to love themselves so they can love their families and start to move in a positive direction."
The camp is funded through a combination of fees and charitable donations. Enrollment is through parents, although in some states juvenile justice systems send some offenders to boot camps.
However, some studies have shown that juvenile offenders sent to boot camps were no less likely to commit new crimes than those who were placed in juvenile detention or given probation.
The Star-News did not specify whether the videos were taken at a Family First training session and noted that some children seemed to be wearing T-shirts from another camp.
Keith "Sarge" Gibbs, who runs Sarge's Community Base/Commit II Achieve Boot Camp, said that some of the children appear to be wearing his camp T-shirts.
McFarland worked for him in 2009 but left to form his own camp after Gibbs learned that he had lied about taking a required background check, Gibbs said.
"He left and took 28 families and kids with him, with my shirts and some paperwork," Gibbs told The Associated Press on Friday.
http://nospank.net/n-u89.htm
Monday, October 17, 2011
Pennsylvania Prisoners Charged with Rioting After Protesting Conditions in Solitary
Pennsylvania Prisoners Charged with Rioting After Protesting Conditions in Solitary
by Sal Rodriguez
A group of inmates held in solitary confinement in a Pennsylvania prison have been charged with various felony offenses, including rioting and aggravated harassment, stemming from their participation in an April 2010 protest against prison abuses. The group, which has come to be known as the Dallas 6, covered the windows of their cell doors with bedding in protest of alleged harassment by correctional officers at the State Correctional Institution (SCI) Dallas. Their protest was met with violent "cell extractions" against all six inmates. Officially, the covering of the cell windows constituted an act which coerced correctional officials to perform cell extractions, therefore making their actions rioting.
According to Human Rights Coalition-Fed Up! investigator Bret Grote, there will be a hearing before Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judge Nina Gartley on October 21st regarding a defense motion to consolidate the cases of four of the Dallas 6's cases into a single case. The hearing involves Andre Jacobs, Carrington Keys, Derrick Stanley, and Duane Peters-El, four of the five members of the Dallas 6 who have yet to have their cases resolved. (Anthony Kelly accepted a plea bargain last year, and Anthony Locke will be tried separately). The four are currently held at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility. Carrington Keys was set to go to trial on October 17th, but the trial has been postponed to a later, undetermined date.
The alleged abuses against inmates that inspired the protest are, according to some, reflective of a widespread problem in the Pennsylvania prison system. The most dramatic allegations surfaced last month, when a suspended prison guard from SCI Pittsburgh was arrested on charges that he sexually or physically assaulted more than 20 inmates. Earlier reports suggest less extreme, but nonetheless serious abuses at other prisons.
As of August 31, 2011 there were 51,393 inmates under the jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, in a system with a designed capacity of 44,190. Among them are over 1,500 inmates in isolation units—referred to as Restricted Housing Units. Restricted Housing Units are solitary confinement units where inmates are kept in their cells 23 hours a day during the week and 24 hours on the weekends.
For ten months between 2009 and 2010, the Human Rights Coalition-Fed Up! worked on a report documenting abuses across Pennsylvania prisons, but most specifically at SCI Dallas. A medium security prison in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, SCI Dallas houses over 2,100 inmates, including over a hundred inmates in Disciplinary and Administrative Restricted Housing Units.
According to the 2010 report by the Human Rights Coalition-Fed Up! “Institutionalized Cruelty: Torture at SCI Dallas and in Prisons Throughout Pennsylvania”, written with extensive cooperation of inmates, SCI Dallas was particularly rife with abuses. Among them, the “frequent usage of racist slurs, threats of violence, verbal and physical abuse by guards,” “ retaliation against prisoners exercising their constitutional rights to file grievances,” and “failure to provide adequate or at times any, physical or mental health care.”
One prisoner who corresponded with the HRC described his experience in the RHU at SCI Dallas:
"The conditions were very inhumane...hot, no working vents at all... stuffy and humid... My first cell bugs were biting me all over my body, when I said something about it they (medical staff) played like I was crazy then finally after constant complaining they gave me benadryl then moved me and still didn't clean the cell. They had a light on all day that felt like a rotisserie lamp. It was hard to sleep because of the hot humid cells and constant bugs biting me all day and night... We had no cups to drink the brown colored water that came o ut of the sinks and toilets. There was constant screaming yelling kicking and banging..."
The 93 page report includes extensive case studies and descriptions by inmates of the psychological torment of solitary confinement, racism, violence, and various other abuses at SCI Dallas. One detailed description of the psychologically detrimental effects of solitary confinement in the RHUs cited in the report can be read here.
The report was released in April 2010. RHU Inmate Andre Jacobs, who had corresponded with HRC and whose testimonial appeared in the report, was sent a copy of the report. On April 25th, RHU inmate Derrick Stanley reported hearing a member of the security staff tell Jacobs that he "just got something really interesting from Fed Up."
At some point on the 25th, inmate Anthony Kelly, who had contributed to the HRC report, had food withheld from him. Fellow inmate Isaac Sanchez spoke out against the withholding of food, and subsequently Sanchez's dinner was withheld. On May 2nd, Anthony Kelly wrote that "as of 4/25/10 I haven't had a sip of water and only 2 baloney sandwiches... They cut off your water and see how long you go before they can break you. They starve you." He also wrote that the report was being circulated among correctional officers, and that they had since "been on a very vicious roll."
On April 28th, three days after the withholding of meals from Kelly and Sanchez, Sanchez was the target of a cell extraction. As the HRC report describes it:
A cell-extraction is when guards equipped in riot gear and armed with pepper spray and electro-shock weapons forcibly enter a cell in order to overwhelm a prisoner, place them in hand and leg restraints, and move them to another cell by force.
Sanchez was, in his own words, "violently beaten and shocked for sometime, then I was placed on the restraint chair for sixteen hours."
The following day, six prisoners, many of whom had contributed to the HRC report, covered the windows of their cells in protest.
"We covered our windows to obstruct count, refused to answer them, barricaded our doors closed... and forced cell-extractions," according to a letter from Andre Jacobs cited in the August 2010 HRC report.
Andre Jacobs, Anthony Kelly, Carrington Keys, Anthony Locke, Derrick Stanley, and Duane Peters-El were all subjected to violent cell extractions the same day. All were tasered, many more than a dozen times, as well as pepper sprayed and beaten. Pages 10-16 of HRC's August 2010 report on the six provide background on the inmates as well as descriptions of their injuries.
According to the criminal complaints, filed July 7th, 2010, all six inmates were charged with rioting. The complaints read:
Riot-A Person is guilty is he participates with two or more others in a course of disorderly conduct with the intent to coerce official action. To wit; the defendant, along with five other inmates, covered their cell door windows and tied their doors shut in order to cause Corrections Officers to perform cell extractions.
In the Affidavit of Probable Cause (against Duane Peters):
On April 29, 2010, the defendant and other inmates lead by I/M Keys, I/M Locke, I/M Kelly and I/M Jacobs covered their cell door windows in order to require them to be extracted from the cells. The defendant, while housed in the RHU, also barricaded his cell door, along with five other inmates, and refused several orders to remove the items. This caused the use of the cell extraction team. When the extraction team attempted to remove the defendant he resisted and attempted to assault the officers after they entered.
According to a September 2010 news story from Luzerne County regarding a preliminary hearing for Carrington Keys:
On April 29, the men hung bedsheets to keep guards from peering into their cells and used the cloth to secure their doors shut, said Trooper Christopher Wilson. When an extraction team entered the cells, he said six guards were pelted with feces and urine.
In testimony, Lt. David Mosier, who heads the extraction team, said he gave "numerous warnings" to Keys and said guards would raid the cells if the bedding wasn't taken down.
"He refused all orders," Mosier said. "At that point I ordered the extraction team to enter."
The section referring to the guards "pelted with feces and urine" is a reference to additional charges against Carrington Keys, who denies those charges.
The charge of Aggravated Harassment by Prisoner against Keys, in the July 7th criminal complaint, reads:
A person is guilty if while confined in or committed to any local or county detention facility, jail or prison or any State penal or correctional institution or other State penal or correctional facility located in this Commonwealth, he intentionally or knowingly causes or attempts to cause another to come into contact with saliva or feces my throwing, tossing, spitting or expelling such fluid or material. To wit; the defendant threw feces at and on the extraction team; the victims are employees of the State Correctional Institution in Dallas.
One inconsistency in the charges against Keys is that, had there been an incident in which excrement had been thrown at the officers, there would have been a decontamination process (which there is no evidence of), rather than the continuation of cell extractions immediately after Keys' extraction.
In a hearing on November 12th, 2010:
State police Cpl. Christopher Wilson called the three corrections officers to testify. They said the six inmates were given several orders to remove the coverings from their cell doors – a violation of the prisons code – and didn’t comply.
The officers testified they then removed the six men from their cells to search them.
“Something serious was going on,” said Sgt. Donald Buck, an officer at SCI-Dallas. “It was a security and safety issue.”
Originally charged as a group, the six were eventually split up into six individual cases. Their actions were deemed a safety issue which, as the complaints read, served to "coerce official action", with the cell extractions being the official action coerced by the inmates.
As of October 4th, 2011, Anthony Kelly accepted a plea bargain (the details of which are unknown) in November 2010 and has since been released. All of the remaining inmates have remained in solitary confinement units. Anthony Locke has not been in contact with HRC-Fed Up! nor any Dallas 6 support groups.
Duane Peters and Carrington Keys are currently representing themselves. Keys, in July 2010, filed a suit against the district attorney for ignoring complaints. In September 2010 the suit was moved from state to federal court, where Keys was asked to amend his complaint against the District Attorney. He added complaints of being retaliated against and asked the federal government to issue a restraining against the District Attorney, a move which was subsequently denied.
Since the incident in April 2010, Andre Jacobs has been transferred to three facilities. The first facility where he was transfered immediately after the cell extraction was SCI Coal Township where, on August 2nd according to over a dozen reports from inmates, food was withheld from him because "he liked to file paperwork." After protesting the withholding of meals, he was subsequently removed from the cell while guards removed the mattress and personal belongings and was returned to an empty cell and was reportedly denied meals for an extended period of time afterwards. He was later sent to SCI Huntington and then SCI Rockview. Jacobs is currently in the Luzerne County prison for pretrial hearings represented by a public attorney who Jacobs has attempted to fire so that he may represent himself, but so far this move has not been allowed by the court.
Sal Rodriguez | October 15, 2011 at 10:00 pm | Categories: civil liberties/civil rights, Pennsylvania, retaliation, solitary confinement | URL: http://wp.me/pKbGK-14e
by Sal Rodriguez
A group of inmates held in solitary confinement in a Pennsylvania prison have been charged with various felony offenses, including rioting and aggravated harassment, stemming from their participation in an April 2010 protest against prison abuses. The group, which has come to be known as the Dallas 6, covered the windows of their cell doors with bedding in protest of alleged harassment by correctional officers at the State Correctional Institution (SCI) Dallas. Their protest was met with violent "cell extractions" against all six inmates. Officially, the covering of the cell windows constituted an act which coerced correctional officials to perform cell extractions, therefore making their actions rioting.
According to Human Rights Coalition-Fed Up! investigator Bret Grote, there will be a hearing before Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judge Nina Gartley on October 21st regarding a defense motion to consolidate the cases of four of the Dallas 6's cases into a single case. The hearing involves Andre Jacobs, Carrington Keys, Derrick Stanley, and Duane Peters-El, four of the five members of the Dallas 6 who have yet to have their cases resolved. (Anthony Kelly accepted a plea bargain last year, and Anthony Locke will be tried separately). The four are currently held at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility. Carrington Keys was set to go to trial on October 17th, but the trial has been postponed to a later, undetermined date.
The alleged abuses against inmates that inspired the protest are, according to some, reflective of a widespread problem in the Pennsylvania prison system. The most dramatic allegations surfaced last month, when a suspended prison guard from SCI Pittsburgh was arrested on charges that he sexually or physically assaulted more than 20 inmates. Earlier reports suggest less extreme, but nonetheless serious abuses at other prisons.
As of August 31, 2011 there were 51,393 inmates under the jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, in a system with a designed capacity of 44,190. Among them are over 1,500 inmates in isolation units—referred to as Restricted Housing Units. Restricted Housing Units are solitary confinement units where inmates are kept in their cells 23 hours a day during the week and 24 hours on the weekends.
For ten months between 2009 and 2010, the Human Rights Coalition-Fed Up! worked on a report documenting abuses across Pennsylvania prisons, but most specifically at SCI Dallas. A medium security prison in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, SCI Dallas houses over 2,100 inmates, including over a hundred inmates in Disciplinary and Administrative Restricted Housing Units.
According to the 2010 report by the Human Rights Coalition-Fed Up! “Institutionalized Cruelty: Torture at SCI Dallas and in Prisons Throughout Pennsylvania”, written with extensive cooperation of inmates, SCI Dallas was particularly rife with abuses. Among them, the “frequent usage of racist slurs, threats of violence, verbal and physical abuse by guards,” “ retaliation against prisoners exercising their constitutional rights to file grievances,” and “failure to provide adequate or at times any, physical or mental health care.”
One prisoner who corresponded with the HRC described his experience in the RHU at SCI Dallas:
"The conditions were very inhumane...hot, no working vents at all... stuffy and humid... My first cell bugs were biting me all over my body, when I said something about it they (medical staff) played like I was crazy then finally after constant complaining they gave me benadryl then moved me and still didn't clean the cell. They had a light on all day that felt like a rotisserie lamp. It was hard to sleep because of the hot humid cells and constant bugs biting me all day and night... We had no cups to drink the brown colored water that came o ut of the sinks and toilets. There was constant screaming yelling kicking and banging..."
The 93 page report includes extensive case studies and descriptions by inmates of the psychological torment of solitary confinement, racism, violence, and various other abuses at SCI Dallas. One detailed description of the psychologically detrimental effects of solitary confinement in the RHUs cited in the report can be read here.
The report was released in April 2010. RHU Inmate Andre Jacobs, who had corresponded with HRC and whose testimonial appeared in the report, was sent a copy of the report. On April 25th, RHU inmate Derrick Stanley reported hearing a member of the security staff tell Jacobs that he "just got something really interesting from Fed Up."
At some point on the 25th, inmate Anthony Kelly, who had contributed to the HRC report, had food withheld from him. Fellow inmate Isaac Sanchez spoke out against the withholding of food, and subsequently Sanchez's dinner was withheld. On May 2nd, Anthony Kelly wrote that "as of 4/25/10 I haven't had a sip of water and only 2 baloney sandwiches... They cut off your water and see how long you go before they can break you. They starve you." He also wrote that the report was being circulated among correctional officers, and that they had since "been on a very vicious roll."
On April 28th, three days after the withholding of meals from Kelly and Sanchez, Sanchez was the target of a cell extraction. As the HRC report describes it:
A cell-extraction is when guards equipped in riot gear and armed with pepper spray and electro-shock weapons forcibly enter a cell in order to overwhelm a prisoner, place them in hand and leg restraints, and move them to another cell by force.
Sanchez was, in his own words, "violently beaten and shocked for sometime, then I was placed on the restraint chair for sixteen hours."
The following day, six prisoners, many of whom had contributed to the HRC report, covered the windows of their cells in protest.
"We covered our windows to obstruct count, refused to answer them, barricaded our doors closed... and forced cell-extractions," according to a letter from Andre Jacobs cited in the August 2010 HRC report.
Andre Jacobs, Anthony Kelly, Carrington Keys, Anthony Locke, Derrick Stanley, and Duane Peters-El were all subjected to violent cell extractions the same day. All were tasered, many more than a dozen times, as well as pepper sprayed and beaten. Pages 10-16 of HRC's August 2010 report on the six provide background on the inmates as well as descriptions of their injuries.
According to the criminal complaints, filed July 7th, 2010, all six inmates were charged with rioting. The complaints read:
Riot-A Person is guilty is he participates with two or more others in a course of disorderly conduct with the intent to coerce official action. To wit; the defendant, along with five other inmates, covered their cell door windows and tied their doors shut in order to cause Corrections Officers to perform cell extractions.
In the Affidavit of Probable Cause (against Duane Peters):
On April 29, 2010, the defendant and other inmates lead by I/M Keys, I/M Locke, I/M Kelly and I/M Jacobs covered their cell door windows in order to require them to be extracted from the cells. The defendant, while housed in the RHU, also barricaded his cell door, along with five other inmates, and refused several orders to remove the items. This caused the use of the cell extraction team. When the extraction team attempted to remove the defendant he resisted and attempted to assault the officers after they entered.
According to a September 2010 news story from Luzerne County regarding a preliminary hearing for Carrington Keys:
On April 29, the men hung bedsheets to keep guards from peering into their cells and used the cloth to secure their doors shut, said Trooper Christopher Wilson. When an extraction team entered the cells, he said six guards were pelted with feces and urine.
In testimony, Lt. David Mosier, who heads the extraction team, said he gave "numerous warnings" to Keys and said guards would raid the cells if the bedding wasn't taken down.
"He refused all orders," Mosier said. "At that point I ordered the extraction team to enter."
The section referring to the guards "pelted with feces and urine" is a reference to additional charges against Carrington Keys, who denies those charges.
The charge of Aggravated Harassment by Prisoner against Keys, in the July 7th criminal complaint, reads:
A person is guilty if while confined in or committed to any local or county detention facility, jail or prison or any State penal or correctional institution or other State penal or correctional facility located in this Commonwealth, he intentionally or knowingly causes or attempts to cause another to come into contact with saliva or feces my throwing, tossing, spitting or expelling such fluid or material. To wit; the defendant threw feces at and on the extraction team; the victims are employees of the State Correctional Institution in Dallas.
One inconsistency in the charges against Keys is that, had there been an incident in which excrement had been thrown at the officers, there would have been a decontamination process (which there is no evidence of), rather than the continuation of cell extractions immediately after Keys' extraction.
In a hearing on November 12th, 2010:
State police Cpl. Christopher Wilson called the three corrections officers to testify. They said the six inmates were given several orders to remove the coverings from their cell doors – a violation of the prisons code – and didn’t comply.
The officers testified they then removed the six men from their cells to search them.
“Something serious was going on,” said Sgt. Donald Buck, an officer at SCI-Dallas. “It was a security and safety issue.”
Originally charged as a group, the six were eventually split up into six individual cases. Their actions were deemed a safety issue which, as the complaints read, served to "coerce official action", with the cell extractions being the official action coerced by the inmates.
As of October 4th, 2011, Anthony Kelly accepted a plea bargain (the details of which are unknown) in November 2010 and has since been released. All of the remaining inmates have remained in solitary confinement units. Anthony Locke has not been in contact with HRC-Fed Up! nor any Dallas 6 support groups.
Duane Peters and Carrington Keys are currently representing themselves. Keys, in July 2010, filed a suit against the district attorney for ignoring complaints. In September 2010 the suit was moved from state to federal court, where Keys was asked to amend his complaint against the District Attorney. He added complaints of being retaliated against and asked the federal government to issue a restraining against the District Attorney, a move which was subsequently denied.
Since the incident in April 2010, Andre Jacobs has been transferred to three facilities. The first facility where he was transfered immediately after the cell extraction was SCI Coal Township where, on August 2nd according to over a dozen reports from inmates, food was withheld from him because "he liked to file paperwork." After protesting the withholding of meals, he was subsequently removed from the cell while guards removed the mattress and personal belongings and was returned to an empty cell and was reportedly denied meals for an extended period of time afterwards. He was later sent to SCI Huntington and then SCI Rockview. Jacobs is currently in the Luzerne County prison for pretrial hearings represented by a public attorney who Jacobs has attempted to fire so that he may represent himself, but so far this move has not been allowed by the court.
Sal Rodriguez | October 15, 2011 at 10:00 pm | Categories: civil liberties/civil rights, Pennsylvania, retaliation, solitary confinement | URL: http://wp.me/pKbGK-14e
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
A small teen in prison: Belli was thrown to wolves
A small teen in prison: Belli was thrown to wolves in Lieber's toughest dorm
Inmates at Lieber state prison marked James Belli as prey as soon as he landed in a maximum- security cell block meant for murderers, rapists and other violent criminals. Slight, slim and pale, the Summerville teen was fresh meat in a den of predators.
What happened to him at Lieber reveals a dark and dangerous world behind the brick walls and barbed wire at one of South Carolina's toughest prisons.
PROVIDED BY BELLI FAMILY
James Belli's inmate identification card from the S.C. Department of Corrections.
It unveils a place where the most violent prisoners ruled the roost, guards suspected one another of corruption and corrections officials turned a blind eye to cancers in their midst, court documents show.
Belli's family knew none of this when they turned the wayward teen in to police in late 2005 to face burglary and larceny charges, hoping it would straighten him out. Instead, he became a target for extortion at Lieber, and was roughed up and shaken down by other inmates.
Belli, 19, had served just a few months of his eight-year sentence when prisoners attacked him on Aug. 23, 2006. One man plunged a homemade shank into Belli's neck — again and again. Belli died the next day.
His family's quest for answers, along with a civil lawsuit, has yielded a bounty of documents and testimony that raise fresh questions about prison officials' handling of events leading up to Belli's death, and their failure to protect him from harm.
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/jul/25/small-teen-prison-belli-was-thrown-wolves-liebers-/
Inmates at Lieber state prison marked James Belli as prey as soon as he landed in a maximum- security cell block meant for murderers, rapists and other violent criminals. Slight, slim and pale, the Summerville teen was fresh meat in a den of predators.
What happened to him at Lieber reveals a dark and dangerous world behind the brick walls and barbed wire at one of South Carolina's toughest prisons.
PROVIDED BY BELLI FAMILY
James Belli's inmate identification card from the S.C. Department of Corrections.
It unveils a place where the most violent prisoners ruled the roost, guards suspected one another of corruption and corrections officials turned a blind eye to cancers in their midst, court documents show.
Belli's family knew none of this when they turned the wayward teen in to police in late 2005 to face burglary and larceny charges, hoping it would straighten him out. Instead, he became a target for extortion at Lieber, and was roughed up and shaken down by other inmates.
Belli, 19, had served just a few months of his eight-year sentence when prisoners attacked him on Aug. 23, 2006. One man plunged a homemade shank into Belli's neck — again and again. Belli died the next day.
His family's quest for answers, along with a civil lawsuit, has yielded a bounty of documents and testimony that raise fresh questions about prison officials' handling of events leading up to Belli's death, and their failure to protect him from harm.
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/jul/25/small-teen-prison-belli-was-thrown-wolves-liebers-/
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Youth detention worker arrested on sex charges
Youth detention worker arrested on sex charges
Richard Bradberry, 54, is suspected of abusing inmates
By Patrick Lohmann
Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A supervisor at an Albuquerque youth detention facility was arrested Friday afternoon on charges of sexually abusing several female juvenile inmates.
Richard Bradberry, 54, is charged with three counts each of criminal sexual contact, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, false imprisonment and voyeurism. Authorities said he groped three underage female inmates, including one instance of pulling down the pants and underwear of a girl.
Two of the alleged victims are 16 years old and one is 17, police said. All three are inmates at the Camino Nuevo Youth Center, where Bradberry worked as a youth care specialist.
Police first heard allegations of abuse a year ago, said State Police spokesman Sgt. Tim Johnson, but they didn't have enough evidence.
In April, however, police said one of the alleged victims told police she had been touched inappropriately, and investigators were able to corroborate several witness interviews with the facility's surveillance footage, Johnson said.
"He touched them inappropriately," Johnson said. "... We're hoping that there aren't any more victims, but if there are, they can definitely contact State Police."
Bradberry was arrested shortly before 6 p.m. on Friday at his home.
According to the arrest warrant, the girls told police that Bradberry often made them feel uncomfortable by telling them he needed a girlfriend and inviting them to dance upon their release at a club he claimed to own. The girls' testimonies also claimed that Bradberry would try to get girls alone during cleaning times at the youth jail and try and kiss them, and one of the girls said she always cleaned with a fellow inmate to avoid unwanted contact from the supervisor.
One of the alleged victims told police Bradberry groped her more than a dozen times, according to the warrant.
A second alleged victim said Bradberry groped her as he placed a piece of gum in her back pocket, according to the arrest warrant, and another claimed the supervisor often told her that he was "horny" and needed a girlfriend.
New Mexico Children Youth and Families Department spokesman Enrique Knell said the allegations against Bradberry counteract the good work of "99 percent" of CYFD employees.
"It's really devastating to the mission here," he said. "When this kind of thing happens, it tends to tarnish the reputation of everyone here."
Bradberry was a CYFD employee for between eight and 10 years, Knell said, and he is now on administrative leave.
http://www.correctionsone.com/staff-misconduct/articles/4189763-Youth-detention-worker-arrested-on-sex-charges/
Richard Bradberry, 54, is suspected of abusing inmates
By Patrick Lohmann
Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A supervisor at an Albuquerque youth detention facility was arrested Friday afternoon on charges of sexually abusing several female juvenile inmates.
Richard Bradberry, 54, is charged with three counts each of criminal sexual contact, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, false imprisonment and voyeurism. Authorities said he groped three underage female inmates, including one instance of pulling down the pants and underwear of a girl.
Two of the alleged victims are 16 years old and one is 17, police said. All three are inmates at the Camino Nuevo Youth Center, where Bradberry worked as a youth care specialist.
Police first heard allegations of abuse a year ago, said State Police spokesman Sgt. Tim Johnson, but they didn't have enough evidence.
In April, however, police said one of the alleged victims told police she had been touched inappropriately, and investigators were able to corroborate several witness interviews with the facility's surveillance footage, Johnson said.
"He touched them inappropriately," Johnson said. "... We're hoping that there aren't any more victims, but if there are, they can definitely contact State Police."
Bradberry was arrested shortly before 6 p.m. on Friday at his home.
According to the arrest warrant, the girls told police that Bradberry often made them feel uncomfortable by telling them he needed a girlfriend and inviting them to dance upon their release at a club he claimed to own. The girls' testimonies also claimed that Bradberry would try to get girls alone during cleaning times at the youth jail and try and kiss them, and one of the girls said she always cleaned with a fellow inmate to avoid unwanted contact from the supervisor.
One of the alleged victims told police Bradberry groped her more than a dozen times, according to the warrant.
A second alleged victim said Bradberry groped her as he placed a piece of gum in her back pocket, according to the arrest warrant, and another claimed the supervisor often told her that he was "horny" and needed a girlfriend.
New Mexico Children Youth and Families Department spokesman Enrique Knell said the allegations against Bradberry counteract the good work of "99 percent" of CYFD employees.
"It's really devastating to the mission here," he said. "When this kind of thing happens, it tends to tarnish the reputation of everyone here."
Bradberry was a CYFD employee for between eight and 10 years, Knell said, and he is now on administrative leave.
http://www.correctionsone.com/staff-misconduct/articles/4189763-Youth-detention-worker-arrested-on-sex-charges/
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