Mental illness in Arizona's state prisons: Chuck Ryan on the carpet, again.

The following is a cross post from Arizona Prison Watch and the Prison Abolitionist blogs, to give those of you who have been following the concerns about Hep C in Arizona's Department of Corrections' facilities some context.

Sorry for the redundancy, my Facebook friends who are already getting feed, and those of you picking up my other tweets.

To those of you for whom this is all news, follow the links for more background.

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The following was posted to another site on Friday, November 19, 2010 by the former AZ Department of Corrections deputy warden who was interviewed by Channel 12 this summer and called for Chuck Ryan to resign. It's being reprinted here with Carl's permission. 

As some of you may know, one of the corrections' officers unions also called on the governor to fire Ryan in a letter of no confidence two weeks ago. I shouldn't have to point this out, but prisoners aren't the only ones behind bars at heightened risk under current conditions. The front line staff also have good reason to be concerned.

Needless to say, none of us are making friends in Arizona's high places. In fact, since the people we're antagonizing have badges and guns on their side - as well as the keys to the prisons - it would help if the public and media really watch our backs out here.

Other witnesses to the institutionalized neglect and abuse of prisoners with mental illness in Arizona are urged to contact the US Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division; send them what you know and request that they initiate a CRIPA investigation before the next ADC suicide or homicide goes down. If you need to you may remain anonymous while doing so.

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Arizona's Prison Problems - Open Letter to the Director

Mental Health Treatment for Offenders

By Carl ToersBijns

Open Letter to Charles Ryan, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections

Mr. Director, when are you going to address the horrific mental health conditions of confinement inside your prison? Have you really taken a look into the need to implement a mental health "program" that is realistic and objectively driven by individuals who really care about doing the job and doing it right? Arizona is way behind in providing mental health care for those incarcerated with mental health illness and other disorders.

The very first thing I noticed when I came onboard five years ago was the long lines of inmates waiting to be seen by mental health professionals obviously overwhelmed by the number of offenders on their caseload, and the lack of priority this task has been demonstrated by the administration for the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADOC). Speaking to both mental health professionals and providers, it became obvious to the spectator that these inmates are not receiving the type of care they need during their stay of incarceration or when they are released with a thirty day blister pack. Witnessing this lack of organized effort to create and deliver a sound mental health treatment program in spaces designed for much less tasks, I am astonished how these inmates are able to conform and maintain their individual demeanor under such stress and lack of care.

Certainly, I have gleaned that apathy has set in with some treatment professionals as they are just merely overtaken by the sheer number of "clients" they see daily and the need to provide follow up treatment is dominated or even sabotaged by the lack of cooperation by the administration to provide security escorts to and from such activities to ensure a completion of services. Right now, as we speak, except for a few individuals down there in Tucson, you are warehousing mentally ill inmates in the special management units that receive no attention, no care and no hope of ever coming out with some degree of normalcy when released. It's almost like you are doing it on purpose so ignore their needs. I have witnessed abandonment of several mental health sponsored programs that enhanced the detection of inmate suicides and the willful destruction of morale among your providers. Lacking such structure to create and provide a meaningful treatment environment is almost impossible as there is no dedicated space to do this most urgent task.

Fragmented services are wasteful as there is no continuity in the delivery or the provisions to ensure the medication is successfully delivered or taken. Even New Mexico Corrections has you beat Mr. Ryan for they had the insight and intelligence to begin separating these types of offenders from the general population and provided them treatment instead of repetitive uses of force to make them comply into an environment they don't understand. Being very familiar with their treatment programs, I am astonished that Arizona is no way near the level of care provided in our neighbor's prisons. Located in a secure and orderly treatment center staff with the resources to maintain a sound treatment program for the criminally ill, it has been successful in design and operations.My history with them goes back to its birth as a treatment center and given the task to be the chief of security for a task force of men and women who volunteered to work in such a difficult and multifaceted place called the Mental Health Treatment Center (MHTC).

As a concerned citizen and former corrections professional, I am writing to you regarding the urgency to find in your organization, a legitimate means to address mental health treatment for your incarcerated inmates who are currently void of treatment and the necessary care to function within the parameter expected of them while incarcerated. I have witnessed as an ADOC correctional administrator, the warehousing of such inmates housing them side by side and allowing their psychotic conduct feed to the next inmates housed on the run as the entire pod becomes a bedlam pod of psychotic criminals yelling, shouting and begging for better care.

You need to prioritize your issues inside your prison because you are violating these inmate's rights by not treating them. Chemical restraints are draconic in every way and cruel. Your staff in uniform are doing the best they can with what they have but need professional help in the area of treatment, not confinement. It takes a team effort to be effective. It will only be a matter of time before you are brought into the federal courts and held accountable for the severe shortcomings of a sound and humane mental health program for the many inmates you are responsible for and up to this point, neglected.

• Allocate more security staffing to the lockdown units in Florence Eyman and Tucson so that everybody who works there are safe and the institutions are operating at a safe and sound level by meeting mandated conditions of confinement.

• You need to allow more time and structure for these so called PMRB (prescribed medication review board) for the mental health professionals to gain insight of inmate behaviors before you order them on involuntary (forced) medication creating excessive use of force situations and physical harm to both staff and inmates. Most administrators sitting in on these reviews are called for the task but really have no insight of the inmate's history or medical / mental health needs.

• Allocate more mental health professionals to these units so they can be functional and purposeful and legally in compliance with the civil rights you have sworn to protect.

• Update your Mental Health Treatment Department Order 1103 dated August 22, 1997 as it is a sure indicator of its priority of this administration by being neglected to be revised for such a long time now.

Thank you.

Carl ToersBijns

Neglect at the ADC: Special Litigation needed.

Hey all,

Here's what I'm sending off to Judy Preston at the Department of Justice's Special Litigation Section in the Civil Rights Division re: a couple of CRIPA complaints. Here's what they did recently about Erie County's jail and the suicide rate I put up that Mother Jones article on a couple of weeks ago.

If you want to print out any or all of the posts below and/or newspaper articles about what's been happening in the prisons and send them to the DOJ and the AZ ACLU (addresses below) it may help move things along.

I'm keeping the letter accompanying this confidential since it references specific prisoners, but I'm posting the rest of this packet up here so pretty much anyone can pick up wherever I leave off - I'm researching the ADC homicides now to send in.

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Arizona DOC: Image is Job 1. Prisoners are expendable. 1/17/2010

Governor Brewer: Help Prisoner Tripati. 1/17/2010

Sanity, mental illness, and "crime". 9/17/2010

The restoration of Jerry Kulp. 9/23/2010

Shannon Palmer's murder: prisoners at risk. 9/13/2010

Prisoner Patrick Lee Ross' tragic death: more to the story 9/7/2010

Perryville SOS: Critical conditions for seriously ill women. 9/10/2010

ASPC-Tucson: Prisoners neglected in cages, again. 9/7/2010

ASPC-Tucson: The death of Tom Reed. 7/08/2010

Despair Behind Bars: Suicide in Arizona Prisons 9/10/2010

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Judy Preston, Acting Chief
Special Litigation Section - DOJ, Civil Rights Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, PHB
Washington, D.C. 20530
(877) 218-5228
(202) 514-6258

(in re: Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act)

American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona
P.O. Box 17148
Phoenix, AZ 85011
(602) 650-1854

(re: Conditions of Confinement: 8th Amendment and health/mental health care)

Conditions of confinement: Sheriff Joe's jail is our responsibility, too.

The following is a revised and somewhat more radical version of my post from AZ prison watch earlier in the night. It seemed appropriate for this blog, too. No one is listening to us at the Governor's office or ADC, so try the DOJ now. Please call or write today.

Amnesty International poster: Write a letter, save a life.

For those who missed Stephen Lemons' review of Shaun Attwood's new book, "Hard Time: A Brit in America's Toughest Jail", it's worth the read. I'd post it here but I've already packed in too much for the night. It is, of course, about the Maricopa County Hell they call a jail. Hit Shaun's blog, "Jon's Jail Journal" too, if you haven't already. He posts letters from prisoners there, and is a good friend to many who would otherwise have no audible voice.

As for the conditions of confinement in our jails and prisons: I don't understand why the Department of Justice hasn't held Arpaio criminally responsible for his abuse of so many people over the years - from medical negligence to conspiracies to deprive us of our civil rights. Their failure to do so thus far is akin to the feds' consent for every harm he's done under his tenure, and complicity with every additional prisoner he neglects or kills. I'm really starting to worry that they plan to make some kind of closed door deal with him, then pack their bags and walk away.

The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act covers prisoners precisely because the People so often end up needing protection from the sadistic cruelty of those wielding power in our name, and few in America are more disenfranchised and vulnerable than those disposed of in jails and prisons - citizens and "aliens" alike. They include our elderly, our poor, our sick, troubled youth, our mentally ill, our developmentally disabled - all those people we once institutionalized elsewhere (and have thrown out into the streets) are thrown into the stew.

Of course, the more vocal idiots in our community argue after every article about prisoner abuse or suicide that because they are in a jail or prison they deserve whatever they get, whatever that may be. Just because those readers like to stone prostitutes, though, doesn't mean they are themselves without sin. Nor do they represent all of us. Those people are twisted bullies hiding behind fake identities looking for someone to kick who's already down. They've probably commented on this blog of Stephen's, in fact.

That's a tangent I can't stop from exploring in this context. The media shouldn't give such people the platform on which to celebrate brutalization, suicide, and murder, including among prisoners, in the first place. That's not supporting freedom of speech - it's just intimidating the voices of reason and humanity into silence. Giving hateful people our shared public space empowers them to use shame to perpetrate cruelty, and it perpetuates the stigma felt by prisoners' families who read "good riddance" from the community after their loved ones die. They screen such things out of printed "letters to the editor"; why not moderate their public forums? Only abusive and rich people seem to get amplified when they speak - the rest of us get censored, even if we head the nightly news.

Frankly, most of "free" Arizona should be locked up, looking at the multitude of laws that require jail or prison for those who break them - and at how unbelievably easy it is to put someone away, especially in this state. We are just privileged or very lucky if we've escaped such a fate so far. Those who think they will never be prosecuted because they really aren't "criminals" need to check out the Arizona Justice Project. There are all sorts of innocent people behind bars.

Once in a while the law reaches out and touches us where we never thought it would - and since it's not a common occurrence in our white, middle class communities, we are sure that there is just a deviant in our midst, or it is a fluke of the justice system that will work itself out. Dad's in an accident while on painkillers following surgery and goes to prison because he had an old DUI. Presumably he will get treatment in prison, but he's already been sober for 5 years - instead he just loses time from his kids' lives and his ability to support his family. The neighbor is arrested for embezzling to save the house from foreclosure and her kids from homelessness - losing everything and everyone in the process. We pay over $20,000 a year to incarcerate her for five years - and God knows how much to put the kids in foster care - while her banker gets a bonus from the taxpayer bailout.  

I hope everyone out there finds those images as disturbing as I do. It happens all the time.

As for the wrongfully-accused: Americans don't really presume innocence, which is why Joe's jail was allowed to get so bad. We recoil from the accused as soon as they hit the news because the possibility that agents of the almighty law might be corrupt or wrong threatens our sense of social order. We sacrifice Innocence like she's the designated virgin just to maintain the illusion that the guilty among us are eventually caught, and that those who are caught are always guilty. 

People who are innocent tend to believe that the truth will prevail, and if it doesn't they end up being punished worse than the real criminals who make a deal. Real-life case in point: Courtney Bisbee, the school nurse accused of touching a 14-year old liar and branded as a child molester, was a feather in the cap of the detective who arrested her and the prosecutor who got the conviction. To assure that the rest of us got our taste of blood, the judge slammed her with 11 years for fighting it out in court instead of taking a plea bargain that would have had her back home with her child by now.

Stephen Lemons even investigated Courtney's case and advocated on her behalf (here and here, too), but no one wants to hear the new evidence that would exonerate her because it implicates incompetence - or worse. For law enforcement's ego and our sense of order, she's been in prison for at least 6 years now. Maybe Romley is the man who will have the courage to help set her free - we'll see. He was the Maricopa County Attorney when she was originally prosecuted, so if he steps up to the plate and looks at it in a new light, I'll be impressed. Andrew Thomas was too much of a political coward.

In these ways the brutality of our courts, Joe's jail, and Ryan's prisons hits home. It's not a freakish thing for families to be ripped apart by "justice" in poor and minority communities - it's all too common. The legal system works exactly as it's designed to there, oppressing resistance to white supremacy and defiance of the rules of capitalism at every turn. Justice is the sheep's clothing that America dons to promote the interests of the few, and the myth that we are a model of democracy is what blinds us - and Her - to the deceit. 

But Justice is not supposed to prey on the rest of us "ordinary Americans"- it is supposed to protect us. It only seems to be when we fall from grace ourselves (or get falsely accused and imprisoned) that we begin to see the system for what it is. We get inside and see people doomed to spend the rest of their lives in prison for charges as petty as fraud, while murderers walk away with money in their pocket after 15 or 20 years. Looking around, we also realize that the majority of the people behind bars are not a public safety threat - most are public nuisances, eyesores, "sinners" and surplus laborers who legislators thought would be better hidden away. Those still claiming their innocence are all too often out-maneuvered by the state in legal proceedings, and seldom have the luxury of an attorney to help them once appeals are exhausted. 


Look closely and you'll see that America's prisons and jails have, by and large, replaced our mental hospitals, poorhouses, and plantations. And they are major money-making machines for those in power, as long as they skimp on human rights and basic needs like food and health care. That's why the prisoners who would expose them are discredited, discounted, and silenced in every way possible.

Never mind that the desperate and vulnerable are being relegated and abandoned in these hellholes to sociopaths who will rape and torture them for the fun of it, or even kill them just to score a new gang tattoo. To the private and public prison industries alike, each new body is just an addition to their growing empire - they have no interest in anyone's innocence or special circumstances, and no reason to help prevent or reduce the effects of crime in our communities. 

Despite lamenting about the high recidivism rate (usually as an excuse to be better funded and more brutal), jails and prisons are just as well-paid for recycling the people they chewed up once already. Buying the industry's line of BS, a terrorized public decides that parole officers and prosecutors are always professional and responsible and work in a functional system, so it must be the criminal's own fault for getting put back in - he should have learned his lesson the first time. Our perceptions are too often shaped by the expectation that what we pay nearly 10% of our state budget for includes some effort at "rehabilitation" (hence the AZ Department of Corrections' designation as such, not the "Department of Confinement"). The criminal justice system isn't rehabilitating anyone - they're spending our money lobbying the governor and legislature to pass more laws and assure more prison sentences for less serious crimes than ever.

The prison industrial complex as a whole (of which Sheriff Joe is actually just a small part) cultivates the rest of us to feel exploited and victimized, though, so that we seem defenseless and helpless without them. Then they glorify themselves as our protectors (though they usually arrive after the crime, not in time to prevent it), and we willingly pay them some other kid's lunch money to keep it up. It's a racket. Actually reducing crime and making us all more safe would just cut into their power and profit margins.  

Anyone who believes such a system really upholds justice or promotes the public good is delusional or has been duped. Law enforcement is an integral part of the fascist decimation of our rights, not the power protecting them. We - the People - are the only power that will protect liberty and justice for the future, but only if we have our eyes wide open and are ready to risk jail, prison, defamation, and even execution in the process. If we are not, then we have surrendered that which is most important in life for nothing more than illusion. We are on a leash, instead of in a cage. At least some prisoners, with their integrity intact, mange to remain free.

The DOJ is grossly negligent for failing to act aggressively under CRIPA against the MCSO, and therefore shares the blame for emboldening our greedy, bigoted, fear-mongering lawmakers and enforcers to continue to imprison, injure, and kill those of us whose nationality or skin color or gender or politics or religion they hate. But we are also responsible for letting this go on so long without holding either the feds or Arpaio accountable ourselves. So, here are the names and contact info for the people at the DOJ who should be investigating the real public enemies - and taking action - under CRIPA, regardless of what else they're doing. Please call or write on behalf of those fighting  a losing battle to defend their lives. Don't wait for your loved one to end up in trouble: he or she may be the next prisoner of the MCSO or Arizona Department of Corrections to die.

So could you or I.

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DOJ - Special Litigation Section

Mailing Address

Special Litigation Section

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, PHB
Washington, D.C. 20530
For FEDEX: 601 D Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004

Telephone Number
(202) 514-0195
toll-free at (877) 218-5228

Fax Numbers
(202) 514-0212
(202) 514-6273

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Acting Chief
Judy Preston
(202) 514-6258
Principal Deputy Chief
Tammie Gregg
(202) 616-2009
Deputy Chiefs
Julie Abbate (Acting)
(202) 353-4637
Mary Bohan (Acting)
(202) 616-2325
Luis Saucedo (Acting)
(202) 353-0299

How to Request a CRIPA Investigation.

Wrote this letter to the section head at the DOJ in their Civil Rights Division in response to concerns about Jamie Scott, a dialysis patient in Mississippi whose health is deteriorating quickly. I have evidence that not only is she not receiving adequate medical care, such as the case with other Mississippi prisoners - which makes it a pattern of possible civil rights violations, not just an incident. That measn the DOJ has to investigate. 

Am posting his letter here because we all need to know how to do this when confronted with evidence of a pattern of abuse/medical neglect resulting in the denial of civil rights for institutionalized persons. I also need your back-up: even a post-card to the DOJ echoing the request for a CRIPA investigation of MDOC could help.

Access to health care is a constitutionally guaranteed right for prisoners; the problem is that the health care they end up getting, if any at all, is always on the cheap, saving the state money or profiting private industry. So, the standards are what we will really end up fighting for.

Anyway, in response to the SOS from Jamie's mom, I called the warden's and governor's offices in Mississippi this weekend, then yesterday put together a packet of current reports from Jamie's prison to send off with this to the Department of Justice, requesting a CRIPA (Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons) investigation complaining about health care, using both Jamie's and a few other documented examples of neglect/extreme indifference to prisoner health and welfare. It seems I did that once already, but may not have done so quite so officially. 

So, here's how to request a CRIPA investigation, as far as I know. The more people who do this and the more sources of information we have about conditions, the more likely it is that the DOJ will follow up and clean house at the MDOC.

Send the Free The Scott Sisters campaign emails with copies of letters you write on Jamie's behalf for their records. Following the CRIPA request letter is the info from Jamie's mom that went into my packet, regarding prison conditions and retaliation.

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Margaret J. Plews Arizona Prison Watch 1809 East Willetta Street Phoenix, AZ  850o6 arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com  480-580-6807

April 20, 2010

Judy Preston, Chief

US Department of Justice

Special Litigation Section

950 Pennsylvania Ave NW  PHB

Washington, DC 20530

Dear Chief Preston;

Enclosed is some documentation regarding health care in Mississippi’s state prison system. The dramatic change in inmate mortality alone should have alerted your office and triggered an investigation – please don’t delay starting one any longer. The conditions are horrendous, people are dying for lack of adequate medical care, and patients seem to be completely left in the dark about their own illnesses, treatment, prognosis, etc. I believe their civil rights are being violated routinely with grave consequence. The enclosed account of retaliatory behavior on the part of the prison for Mrs. Rasco’s activism troubles me, too. We need you folks in there ASAP or her daughter, Jamie, is going to die before she’s exonerated.

A wealth of additional documentation about the medical services in the CMCF can be found at http://mississippiprisonwatch.blogspot.com , or http://freethescottsisters.blogspot.com . The welfare of Mississippi’s most vulnerable population – their prisoners, including Mrs. Rasco’s girls – is in your hands. Please at least read up on the blogs and see what we’re seeing; I don’t know how you all could not know what’s going on there. I’m getting mail from other women complaining about medical services in that particular facility, too, and expect more within the next couple of weeks. They are resisting their shoddy treatment, and writing and talking about it – there’s no better time than now to go in there…

Please let me know if your office will be following up on this complaint with a CRIPA investigation, or referring it to a more appropriate department for follow-up. Without question, though, we need some kind of federal intervention in Mississippi now. I may be asking for help in Arizona, next, but first things first.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

Margaret J. Plews

Prison Abolitionist

 

------------------------- http://freethescottsisters.blogspot.com---------------------------- 

The mold on the walls and leaking in the units of Mississippi's prisons

Jamie Scott called her mother this morning and informed  her that Warden Holman woke her from sleep, demanding to know what her mother was posting on the internet regarding mold on the walls and leaking in her unit. She got up and showed him the mold all over the walls as well as sewage that was coming up out of the toilets and the spiders overrunning the unit.

The warden then told Jamie (who only has the use of one arm) to scrub down the walls, to which she refused! Jamie told him that her mother is posting the truth and would continue to post about the disgusting conditions of the unit and how it was making her sicker and more prone to infection, and that all of those years of mold would need more than scrubbing anyway. She told him if she was
allowed to lay there and die that he hasn't seen anything yet and would never hear the last of her mother!

The other women were awakened by the Warden and told to scrub the mold off of the walls and they also refused! They told the Warden that they were glad that everybody is finding out about their horrible living conditions and that the building needs to be torn down! No matter how the prison tries to hide it, the truth will continue to be told!

One prison doctor has diagnosed Jamie with an infection and another has not, but she has the discoloration that is a hallmark of recurrent infection. She clarified that it was determined that she was only on Heparin while in the hospital and that it had been discontinued.

PLEASE PARTICIPATE in e-mailing our press release to at least three press contacts as often as possible! It's at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/30178263/Scott-Sisters-Press-Release

Many newspapers can be reached by e-mail or contact form at http://www.usnpl.com/ - please also contact other forms of media that you can easily find info for. We need a whole lot of help to attract as much attention to this case as possible to truly make a difference!

Thank you all, don't let up!!
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