Left To Die

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-a-virginia-jail-a-young-man-wasted-away-and-died--and-no-one-bothered-to-notice/2016/06/09/61d90668-2e63-11e6-9de3-6e6e7a14000c_story.html The Post's View In a Virginia jail, a young man wasted away and died — and no one bothered to notice Jamycheal Mitchell, 24, died at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail on Aug. 19, 2015. By Editorial Board June 10 A MENTALLY ill black man, just 24 years old, is arrested in April 2015 for shoplifting a Mountain Dew, a Snickers bar and a Zebra Cake — total cost: $5 — from a convenience store in Virginia. He languishes in jail for 14 weeks, refusing medicine, his weight plummeting, his cell smeared with feces. After 101 days, having lost more than 40 pounds — literally wasting away, as a starving man does — he dies. And no one noticed a thing, until it was too late. The first and hastiest investigation was done by the facility where Mitchell starved to death, the Hampton Roads Regional Jail. Scarcely a week after his body was discovered, jail officials concluded their probe, pronounced themselves blameless — and released not an iota of information. The next two investigations, by Virginia’s Office of the State Inspector General and the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, were no more edifying. The inspector general, citing guidance from the state attorney general, said it lacked jurisdiction to question jail personnel, thereby raising doubts about the utility of its existence. And the DBHDS, in thousands of turgid words, did not bother to address or, so far as can be determined, even ask about the most glaring failure of all: How could no one have noticed that a man was wasting away in plain sight? The scandal here is multidimensional. It’s a disgrace Mitchell spent 101 days in jail on a $5 shoplifting rap. It’s a disgrace he wasn’t transferred to a nearby state mental-health hospital, as a judge repeatedly ordered. (The hospital didn’t receive and then didn’t see the order until after Mitchell’s death.) It’s a disgrace that months went by before anyone at the jail intervened to take Mitchell to the emergency room. It’s a disgrace the jail taped over video footage taken outside Mitchell’s cell that might have added information. It’s a disgrace the jail absolved itself of all responsibility, while releasing no information. And it’s a disgrace state investigators, after spending months on probes, either couldn’t or wouldn’t ask the right questions to the relevant people. State advocates for the mentally ill have asked for a Justice Department civil rights investigation. That would be a good, and sadly necessary, start in unraveling the disgrace of Jamycheal Mitchell’s death. >Update Family sueing for $60 Million http://wtkr.com/2016/05/10/family-of-portsmouth-man-found-dead-in-jail-files-60-million-lawsuit/ Posted 4:27 pm, May 10, 2016, by Web Staff, Updated at 03:13pm, May 20, 2016 ---------------------------------------- Hampton Roads Regional Jail responds to accusations of threats to inmates Posted 10:02 pm, June 24, 2016, by Brendan Ponton PORTSMOUTH, Va. – Hampton Roads Regional Jail officials responded to claims of inmates facing threats for speaking up about the death of another inmate. In a court filing Friday, jail officials wrote that there is no evidence four inmates are being threatened or targeted. “While there may be cases of witness intimidation requiring court intervention, this is not such a case,” a document reads. The four inmates wrote letters to the lawyer representing Jamycheal Mitchell’s family. Mitchell died in a cell at the jail last summer. His family is now suing. The inmates are named in the lawsuit as having witnessed alleged mistreatment and abuse of Mitchell. Since then, they say they’re being retaliated against. Mitchell’s family’s lawyer, Mark Krudys, asked a judge to make sure the inmates are kept safe. In response to the lawsuit, a statement from the attorney read: “We deny the allegations made against our facility and staff and believe that the facts will establish that our employees were professional and caring in their interactions with Mr. Mitchell.” http://wtkr.com/2016/06/24/hampton-roads-regional-jail-responds-to-accusations-of-threats-to-inmates/ Judge denies protective orders for witnesses in Jamycheal Mitchell case

Inmate Dies When Noone Would Help

Virginia: Man dies in Hampton Roads Regional Jail 2 days after filing emergency grievance begging for help Inside the Hampton Roads Regional Jail, Henry Clay Stewart knew he was sick. He'd filled out grievance after grievance asking for help, a fellow inmate said. A 60-year-old man incarcerated for violating probation on a shoplifting charge, Stewart was vomiting blood. He was unable to eat much of anything for weeks, said Brent Lashley, who was two cells away from Stewart. "I have blacked out two times in less than 24 hours," Stewart wrote Aug. 4 in imperfect English on an emergency grievance form obtained by his family after his death. "I keep asking to go to the emergency room. ... I can't hold water down or food." Two days later, he was dead. Stewart died 353 days after the death of Jamycheal Mitchell in the same jail. Read more: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/8/28/jamycheal-mitchell-virginia-jail-death.html

Texas Jail Guards Deny Using Excessive Force

Texas Jail Guards Deny Using Excessive Force A Texas prisoner testified Monday that five guards stormed his cell, squeezed his genitals and shoved something into his rectum after he asked why he needed to be strip-searched, since he was already naked. Six prison guards are fighting excessive force and failure to protect claims that Marcos Ortiz, 60, made in an October 2014 federal lawsuit. Ortiz took the stand Monday, the first day of trial, in a long-sleeved white shirt, a black tie and thick glasses, his gray goatee nearly meeting white sideburns. He peered around a computer monitor facing him on the witness stand and told his attorney he's still haunted by the sexual assault he suffered at the Estelle Unit in Hunstville on Jan. 31, 2014. "How often do you think about the incident?" asked his attorney, Laura Smith, with Baker Botts. "Just about every day." Prisoner civil rights cases rarely make it to trial. The 11th Amendment immunizes state prison systems and officials from being sued in their official capacities for money, under Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act. Three such defendants in Ortiz's case were dismissed: the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Estelle Unit Warden Tracy Bailey and TDCJ Executive Director Brad Livingston. Ortiz sued Pope and fellow guards Michael Lewis, Diveonlea Lott, Michael Kirk, Kenneth Cathey and Kevin Lloyd in their individual capacities, which means he can recover money damages if he prevails. > The officers claim they are protected by qualified immunity, which shields them from all but the most blatant misconduct. Read more: http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/08/30/texas-jail-guards-deny-using-excessive-force.htm

Guards Had Teen Beat Up

Guards Offer Snack Bounty To Beat Up 13-Year-Old Boy In Detention >> Yet ANOTHER prison abuse horror story out of Florida! A juvenile detention center in Fort Lauderdale is under fire for offering food as a reward for beating up a teenager in its custody. A 13-year-old identified as A.R. was hospitalized for three weeks after staff at the Broward Juvenile Detention Center offered a “snack bounty” in exchange for beating him up. After A.R. was struck on the head by another teenager, staff left him in a solitary room that was scrubbed with bleach. Inhaling the toxic fumes, A.R. suffered a near-fatal asthma attack that landed him in the hospital. But his mother, Shantell McNair, wasn’t informed about the incident until her son was released 21 days later. According to Gordon Weekes, the chief public defender of Broward County, A.R. is one of many abuse victims locked away at the detention facility. In a recent letter to the Department of Juvenile Justice, Weekes wrote that at least one kid was shackled and left in a scorching hot van for hours. He also reported that kids are living in a building that wreaks of sewage, which could be the result of toxic chemicals in the facility. Guards also assaulted the boys and denied them urgent medical care in the past. Weekes believes many of the problems boil down to too few staff and not enough resources to manage so many people. “They’re frustrated, they’re tired, and it’s a recipe for disaster when you have an overworked staff working with kids who have issues,” he told the Broward Palm Beach New Times. “The staff are overworked and underpaid, and as a result they have a short fuse.” http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/guards-offer-snack-bounty-to-beat-up-13-year-old-boy-in-detention/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=c4cjenewsletter

Teargassed, Stripped Naked

World | Tue Jul 26, 2016 3:41am EDT Related: World, Australia Australian PM orders inquiry after teenage prisoners teargassed, stripped naked Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Tuesday ordered an inquiry into the treatment of children in detention after the airing of video showing prison guards teargassing teenage inmates and strapping a half-naked, hooded-boy to a chair. Footage of the abuse of six aboriginal boys in a juvenile detention center sparked renewed criticism of Australia's treatment of Aborigines and their high imprisonment rate. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) aired CCTV footage late Monday of boys in a Northern Territory juvenile detention center also being stripped naked, thrown by the neck into a cell, and held for long periods in solitary confinement. "Like all Australians, I've been deeply shocked – shocked and appalled by the images of mistreatment of children," Turnbull said on ABC radio as he announced a Royal Commission, Australia's most powerful, state sanctioned inquiry. The CCTV footage from the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin was shot between 2010-2014. A lawyer representing two of the boys said all six boys abused were of aboriginal descent. Aborigines make up the majority of the Northern Territory population and 94 percent of juvenile inmates in the territory. “Our (indigenous) people have known about things like this...and to just see it laid bare in front of us last night must be a wake-up call to everyone in Australia – that something’s got to be done about the way we lock our people up in this country, and particularly the way we lock our kids up," an emotional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda told reporters. “What we saw last night is an absolute disgrace.” A report into some of the incidents by the Northern Territory Children's Commissioner in 2015 found fault with the guards' behavior, but the findings were disputed by the then head of prisons and not acted upon, said the ABC. Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles sacked his corrections minister within hours of the broadcast and said that information about the abuse had been withheld from him, blaming a "culture of cover-up" within the Corrections system. Some Aborigines in the territory called for Giles to be removed, with one wearing a hood over their head with the words "Sack Giles". A coalition of Northern Territory Aboriginal organizations called for the national government to dissolve the territory government, which it has the authority to do. "Any government that enacts policies designed to harm children and enables a culture of brutalization and cover-ups, surrenders its right to govern," said spokesman John Paterson. Residents in Alice Springs staged a peaceful protest against the abuse of children in detention, while the ABC reported that at least eight people were protesting on the roof of a prison in the town. Reuters could not confirm the prison protest. BOY SHACKLED TO CHAIR The CCTV video showed guards mocking inmates, carrying a boy by the neck and throwing him onto a mattress in a cell, and covering a teenager's head with a hood and shackling him to a chair with neck, arm, leg and foot restraints. "Excessive use of force, isolation and shackling of children is barbaric and inhumane," said Human Rights Watch Australia Director Elaine Pearson. The ABC reported that only two detention staff members identified in footage remained within the youth justice system. Lawyer Peter O'Brien, who represents Dylan Voller and Jake Roper who were abused, said he was suing the state on their behalf, alleging assault, battery and false imprisonment. "It seems as if this abuse is built into the very core of the system," he said in a statement, calling for the immediate release of Voller, who is now in an adult prison, and all children imprisoned in the Northern Territory. Australia's Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs, who backed the inquiry, said: "We have been reporting on this question of indigenous incarceration, particularly of juveniles, for many, many years and we have had many, many reports...on the appalling conditions in which they are held." Aborigines comprise just three percent of Australia's population but make up 27 percent of those in prison. (Additional reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Jane Wardell and Michael Perry) http://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-prison-inquiry-idUSKCN10605H?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

vaginal and anal searches

New Mexico: CBP Settles Lawsuit with ACLU Client Who Endured Invasive Cavity Searches On July 21, 2016, the ACLU of Texas and the ACLU of New Mexico announced a record settlement in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) paid a New Mexico woman $475,000 for illegally subjecting her to vaginal and anal searches after she was detained at the Cordova Bridge point of entry in El Paso. Also today, the four ACLU affiliates at the nation's Southwest border dispatched letters to 40 healthcare providers that cover 110 facilities - from San Diego to Houston-detailing the rights and responsibilities of hospital personnel when confronted by federal agents who request they perform invasive and illegal body cavity searches. In 2014, the University Medical Center of El Paso paid the same woman - referred to in the lawsuit as Jane Doe to protect her privacy - a $1.1 million settlement - for its collusion in the invasive searches. "While we are pleased to have obtained justice for our client, this is really a victory for residents of border communities, who shouldn't have to fear interactions with the thousands of border agents in their midst," said Rebecca Robertson, legal and policy director for the ACLU of Texas. "Of course, this result could not have been achieved without Ms. Doe's courage and perseverance. Had she succumbed to the threats of CBP agents and remained silent, who knows how many others might have suffered a similarly despicable experience." The ordeal began when a drug-sniffing dog allegedly "alerted" on the ACLU's client as she attempted to return from Mexico to her home in the U.S. Agents subjected her to a strip search at the border station, examining her genitals and anus with a flashlight. No contraband was found. The agents nevertheless transported Ms. Doe to University Medical Center, where over the course of six hours she suffered an observed bowel movement, an X-ray, a speculum exam of her vagina, a bimanual vaginal and rectal exam, and a CT scan. These procedures were conducted without Ms. Doe's consent or a search warrant. Read more: http://bit.ly/29TpGIS

CIW'S Suicide Spike

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